Ticking the Clock of Time backwards
by Tris PhantomEvans
Summary: There are things she shouldn't know but still does. There is a reason why he's always near her. There is a mission they need to do. Maka, the Contractor. Oz, the Chain. They only have two weeks to go back in time and save history before the Abyss swallows the world and Glen changes the past. Tick, tock. Time goes on. ON HIATUS BECAUSE LIFE SUCKS.
1. The Meister's strange rabbit

**Hello, Tris PhantomEvans here! This is my second crossover, a Pandora Hearts and Soul Eater (yes, I'm an obssessed Eater fan) one at it! For those who might also be reading The Strangest Horcruxe, don't worry about it, I'm working on it and I'll have next chapter post up on Friday (because it fits the mood of Halloween, you'll understand why). This idea came to me while I was (and still am) on a Pandora Hearts craze and for the timeline: for Pandora Hearts, it'll be somewhere before Retrace: I Am and for Soul Eater, well, this chapter will tell it. My god, I'm going to have so much fun writing this up!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. I'm just not enough a Genius for that *sighs***

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 1: The Meister's strange rabbit<p>

Soul's PoV

I'm not sure what exactly happened and half the time, I was unconscious and completely knocked-out. I just managed to wake up at that time to stare at… whatever was happening to my Meister, Maka.

I had not been the only one to gaze in confusion at what was happening to her. The others have woken up too by that time, Kid, BlackStar and their weapons looking in surprise at her while they struggled to get on their feet again after the beat-up they suffered from Asura, the Kishin we've been fighting against.

Black and grey razor-sharp blades had protruded all over from Maka's body, shredding Asura's flesh as they pierced through him but that didn't seem to bother him at all. On top of Maka, he grinned down at her, his sickly-skinned hand clasped around her neck as black blood slowly dripped on her face.

"Maka…" I managed to rasp but my already faint voice was drowned into silence by her blood-curling scream.

I shivered as it happened, her screaming sending my blood to freeze and my mind to stop thinking correctly, seeing red instead. The blades she conjured shattered like glass breaking on the floor. Her cry had pierced through my ears and I tried to call after her again and move closer to her but my voice was too hoarse and my body was too weak to move without suffering. All the while I was struggling, I heard Asura whisper things to Maka and I saw her staring dazed at him. I had gritted my teeth and my knuckles had gone white. The damn bastard. What had he been doing to her? Whatever it was, I'll kill him.

Then...

"Let her go, Asura." Her voice had been high and clear and hadn't held any trace of fear. Maka had almost looked bored.

"I told you to let go of your sanity." He cooed at her, gripping her neck even tighter, "Have you already forgotten who you are?" a single finger had gently traced her cheek down and I had to resist the urge to tackle and strangle him.

"Don't you dare touch a hair out of her!" I spat at him venomously but my words fell to deaf ears.

"No, she didn't forget. Maka is stronger than you'll ever be and that's why I'm here. To protect her, and the world." The words that had poured out of her mouth hit me like a bullet and I had slumped further on the ground.

I looked over to my left side to where Kid is and quietly mouthed him the question 'What's going on with her?' to which the golden-eyed boy simply shook his head in confusion. So I had turned back and watched as the events unfolded themselves.

"You better listen up Asura, for I will not show you any mercy if you even as so touch a single hair off Maka's friends, and send you into the Abyss, a fate worse than death if you ask me. The fate only someone like you deserve." Her voice had suddenly become cold and her eyes – even from where I am, steely.

"Is that a threat?" Asura's laugh sent icy shudders down my spine but I shrugged it off and tried walking toward him and Maka anyways, "I'm so _scared!_"

At that moment, the floor had cracked under me and I somehow managed to leap away before it was turned into a pile of rubble and torn me apart on the way. Although, I didn't saw the skin-colored scarf behind and I choked as it rounded me up and restrained me. I heard the others cry my name as I was elevated into the air and about to be crushed on the ground. Stupid Kishin.

My single thoughts had concentrated now only on the hard steel feeling in the depths of my guts and intensifying it into growing to shape my weapon form and replace my body with it. My blade had sliced through the scarf and I fell clattering on the broken floor before taking back my original form and start running toward my captured Meister, despite the pain shooting up from my chest, where the beam had hit me.

"What are you going to do, little meister? I did after all beat up your friends and your weapon is out of reach. You can't do anything."

For an answer, she glared at him viciously, "You don't know what Maka is capable of doing or what _I'm _capable of doing."

"Maka! Why aren't you fighting?" I questioned her in my loudest tone, desperate to free her from Asura's grasp and keep her safe.

She turned her head away from Asura's gaze to my direction and _smirked,_ "She will defend herself but she won't be conscious of it and I'll help her with it." Then her eyes twinkled mischievously, "Don't tell her anything about what's coming when she'll wake up. And oh! You better shield your eyes."

I didn't have time to register what she said. That's when a blast of white light exploded from her and thrown everything around her away, stone, remains of destroyed buildings, a Kishin and a Demon Scythe with it. I hit an already broken wall that I achieved to destroy it using only my head. I gave in a loud cry, my head throbbing violently and pulsating with pain but I used all my will to try to get up and see what's happening. What I saw took my breath away and left me gasping.

Chains dangled from all around Maka, materialized out of nowhere and they coiled all around her like affectionate snakes. But what really shocked me and – yes, I admit it – scared me a little was the large bloody-red scythe in her hands and the enormous spectral shadow of a rabbit hovering over her. Black sparks lit up the red domed sky from her and slowly rose up, wind picking up and whipping her hair madly. Crimson red eyes were revealed. My head blacked out of any thoughts.

"_MAAKKKAAA!"_ I screamed in fury, my own red eyes boring the Kishin's squinted ones.

"What did you do to her, you fucking bastard!" in turn shouted a blue-haired loud-mouth ninja known as BlackStar as he picked up Tsubaki in her dagger mode.

"I… I don't think the Kishin did a-anything…" stammered Kid, watching anxiously and in morbid awe my pig-tailed meister rising to her feet, red eyes gleaming.

"Right answer, Reaper boy. I told her not to do it but then she Maka-Chopped me, invaded more than enough of my privacy and played her stubborn card. She looks a bit like Alice." I don't know who the hell Alice is but Maka chuckled at it, however, it sounded like nothing of her normal laugh. I was bittersweet.

"So," she continued, turning to the Kishin's rising form, "Asura…" her blond fringe covered her eyes and she pursed her lips.

But when she raised her head, I saw her grin psychotically at him, wielding the scythe in a complicated manner, the chains swinging swiftly around her and the rabbit's shadow swallowing in the darkness the sphere we were trapped in, the only thing filled with light then being two pairs of ruby-red eyes.

"_**Looks like your time is uuupppp!"**_ a tremor ran through me at the demented look on her face and I propped myself up when a crack exploded underneath her feet, creating a deep crater.

"I don't think so, little _Chain_." growled Asura before sending skin-colored missiles at her.

In response, Maka jumped over the cliff where she stood and spun in the air, the scythe spinning and twirling with her while slicing through the scarfs. A chain delved in and rounded her waist before pulling her in straight into Asura as she brought the blade down on him, grinning maniacally at him. He was too surprised to even react and the scythe slashed across his chest, sending black blood to splatter on Maka and the uneven ground, making large smudges of inky black liquid. Maka though, didn't seem to notice, her eyes bearing into the Kishin's, both frenzied.

"Don't try to hide," I had heard Maka say with a playful smile, "because I will always seek and find you Asura."

Chains scurried around him in a matter of seconds and they sailed into the air, him snarling and fighting against their grip, before crashing against an already crumbling wall. A few restrained him by the ankles and wrists and a few other slowly rose, pointy ends aimed at him, readying themselves for the blow. Then they struck, piercing his chest with the spiked, sharp ends.

He screeched and I fell to my knees, clutching my chest as pain throbbed from it. The chains dripping of blood, they unraveled from him and started spinning around him in a tight circle, looking like they were almost tracing something on the ground. Meanwhile, Maka had slowly walked toward him, looking suddenly anxious. Another glowing light shatters the darkness and now that I was looking at it, the blood_ did_ trace something, what looked like a weird cryptic circle to be more precise.

The pale purple radiance increased, strange runes blazing on the circle and Maka stood before the chained Asura, her eyes more nervous than ever but looking solemn.

"Kishin Asura, you have crossed the line you never should have, destroying countless souls on the passage and spreading insanity across the world like a disease. Now, you must pass judgement, the judgement of the Abyss." I saw her shudder and it looked like an emotional shadow was casted over her eyes.

"Your sin is… _**your madness!**_"

Wind blew past me and swirled around Maka like a whirlpool and I heard him shout, anger and fear flaring up in his voice. I saw chains, _other_ chains, rise up from a sudden hole where Asura stands, encircling him, restraining him and pulling him down in to an abyss of darkness, into the myth we've heard so much about, the prison out of time called the Abyss. And he shouted, his voice rising like a tsunami and invading my mind:

"_**Black Bloodstained RAABBIIITTTT!"**_

The darkness pulled him down and the Abyss swallowed him under our horrified gazes. Maka's eyes turned back to their emerald green and she fell, out-cold, on what's left of the ground while I ran after her.

Little did I know that this was only the beginning of a whole new craziness.

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><p><strong>*cackles evilly* HAHAHA! <em>This<em> is how the Kishin should have died, all badass and blood and by an equally awesome Maka/Oz! XD How do you guys think about it? Should I go on? Or are you all too bored to read this (unless you want to sleep, ****_that_ is understandable)? Leave a review and tell me all about it! Also, I'm kinda wondering: would you people like to see some MakaxOz? I wanted to try this pairing out (even if in my mind, I'm a total crazy Ozbert and ElliOz fangirl) for a while and I would like to know your opinion on this.**

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, Aurevoir and Auf Wedersien (german)!**


	2. Shadow of broken memories

**Chapter two up! Anyone one happy in the audience? *evades the tomato thrown at me* That was not nice! *throws said tomato at spectactor* Take that! Oops, sorry for that rude interruption! Anyways, I keep feeling like this chapter is a filler but who the hell cares?! I'm updating two chapters today for this story! Be happy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. Our little Jun and Atushi's sadism level is way up mine, so high I wonder if they were once serial killers.**

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 2: Shadows of broken memories<p>

3rd person's PoV

_«Aha! I finally found you! After all that time, I have finally discovered your hiding place, my little stellar! » That voice…_

_«So we finally meet, small sliver...» Who…are they?_

_Images breach like broken shard of mirrors inside her closed eyes, a spider web of destroyed dreams and memories. They glitter like stars and flow freely though her mind, making no sense whatsoever._

_It's as if she was burning from the inside, heat rising into her chest at such high degrees, it seems like a fire is blazing within her. She falls on her knees, the door standing like a mountain before her._

_The souls swirl all around her, a brilliant golden cluster of stars, and an absolutely gorgeous show of transcendent galaxies. _

_A strange room, where dolls sing and a familiar laugh reaches her ears. She feels like she already seen this before, as if the dolls were her friends. She scratches a black cat behind his ears, she smiles sweetly at him. _

_She stares at her soul within the black blood's madness. It is so tiny, yet it holds so much power, and even deeper, something else gently stirs, something luminous and timeless, purring gently at her holding it, an entity that is the core of the soul…_

_A young man with green eyes smiles down at her. A young boy with those same bright green eyes does the same, at the top of her school while the two sit on the stairs._

_«Let's make a pact! » she yells at said boy, deep within a void of inky blackness, a world vacant of any color._

_Unhinged pictures of people swirl round and around in her mind, a boy with mismatched eyes, another with golden eyes, like a raven's, a beautiful woman with wispy back hair and entrancing red eyes. A boy with striking blue eyes and a hot-temper, a black-haired one with round glasses, a girl with piercing lavender eyes. They all look so familiar to her…_

_She longs for something, she always yearns deeply for… someone… she really needs it… she seeks for it without thinking…_

_«Maka, you are actually – »_

_NO!_

From the darkness of unconsciousness, gentle light starts dazzling through, piercing through the curtains of obscure bliss and black blindness, stirring someone's awakening along with the fluttering of a pair of emerald green eyes, slicing the veil between dreams and awareness, coming back to reality.

Soft white light shines through glassy windows and plummets down in the mid-flight before reflecting itself on ash blond hair. Dazed green eyes blink slowly, as if trying but failing to process what they're looking at and what is going on. A slender but thin body sluggishly sits up on the bed it was lying on, rustling up a white button-up blouse, the green and white striped tie attached to the collar moving with her. Two pairs of red and golden-ringed eyes snatch themselves from their glaring contest to worriedly watch over the girl.

"Ah Maka, you're awake! How do you feel?" asks the red-eyed boy.

"I…" starts before mentioned Maka but she's cut off.

"Idiot! Don't ask her that, she just woke up!" hisses the golden-ringed boy, nervously passing his hand in his black hair.

"She's my meister Kid, why should I _not_ ask her that? After what happened there…" a mutual shudder pass between the two boys as they recall the events that happened in the midst of the battle against Asura against the blond meister.

Maka, always sensing whenever there is tension between two boys about a girl (Geez, and she just woke up. Can they be more obvious?) decides to break it by adding her own words.

"I feel perfectly fine guys, nothing to worry about. And what are you two talking about? What happened? Where's Asura?" she blinks at them, fully awake. Behind her, her shadow gently stirs, moving while she didn't look but no one notices it.

"Well you –" Kid begins but the albino called Soul steps on his foot quite violently to shut him up, thinking about what the red-eyed Maka said. Too late, though.

"I what?" Maka asks in her ever so sweet voice. Too soft. _Dangerously _sweet.

"Nothing!" Soul shrieks, stomping even harder on Kid's foot when said boy opens his mouth to talk, flinching instead "The Kishin was killed and you were knocked out!" sadly, Maka knows her weapon too well and feels like he's too panicky to her taste.

"Soul, Kid? What did I do?" Maka growls with a way-too-wide-and-creepy smile, her eyes shooting lightning.

One of mentioned boy takes a long inhale, "Nothing Maka, really. It's just the way the Kishin died, it was a little…" he trails off, trying to find the appropriate word to describe what happened.

"Disturbing." Kid finishes for him and Soul nods in agreement.

Maka frowns, skeptical, "How did the Kishin died?" her thoughts though are drifting towards many other paths and possibilities and one in particular stands out. Except she's probably going to need her trusty book for that one.

"Well," Soul tries to explain to his meister, "it was kind of like it was swallowed by a weird portal and he said something about the Abyss." He shrugs casually. Technically, it's not lying so he thinks he's good. It's almost pitiful how he doesn't know the damage he just did.

_I knew it!_ Maka thinks grimly.

"Wait." Kid butts in and Soul has to restrain himself from stabbing his friend, "wasn't there something about a rab- Ouch!" he cries when Soul crushes Kid's foot with his own, replacing his toes with tiny scythes for good measure. But for Maka, it's the confirmation of her theory. At the back of her mind and shadow, she feels his fear grow as he weeps his future death.

"Huh, I wonder why he did that." Maka speaks her thoughts aloud and notices the boys staring at her, a tentative snicker playing in her head meanwhile, "How are the others?"

"Oh, you know, bandaged up and at the cafeteria eating while trying to bring BlackStar down from performing another of 'his all mighty shows' again." snorts Soul and Maka grins. So everything is going back to normal, with the Kishin gone.

_Well, not everything, there's other stuff too…_ she thinks bitterly and she can almost see him shuffling nervously, looking guilty. But she doesn't regret one bit of summersaulting into this mess. If anything, it's her own fault if he's here, stuck with her.

"Is there anything you need?" Kid asks in a concerned voice, as if expecting Maka to break at any second but he's more worried about her behavior, almost waiting for her eyes to turn bloody red again and for her to summon the spiked chains and scythe. Somewhere, another boy snickers again at Kid's face.

As if on cue, Maka's stomach growls vociferously, signaling to everybody on the floor of the school who have ears that she is hungry. She blushes furiously, embarrassed by her body's reaction while the boys (_all _the boys) grin mockingly at her, two of them thinking about how cute she looked with her face flushing like that while the other is instantly reminded of an amethyst-eyed girl and her behavior when hungry. She mumbles something inaudible and when Kid and Soul look at her in a perplexed way, she motions her hand to the door leading out of the infirmary.

"Tell the others that I'm awake on the way!" she shouts at them as her two 'pretendants' (well, in _his_ eyes anyway) leave to find her food. She waits for their souls to be out of earshot and looks over to watch her shadow on the wall and floor sway nervously.

"Oz." the shadow sways more anxiously, as if trying to escape her grasp. Tough luck.

_"Oz."_ her voice is back at being too gentle. Bad news for him.

Maka grits her teeth and firmly concentrate her soul wavelength on the soul inside her shadow, making it twists and shape itself into a more boyish form, mismatched red and green eyes glowing in it and soul pulsating with anticipated fear. He could just run away but then again, it wouldn't be a book anymore. No, Maka would _have his head._

**_"MAKAA CHOP!"_** a thick leather book sails away and hits its mark when a very manly cry is heard and a loud 'thump' is ensued afterwards, as the boy's real body is pulled out of the shadow with a book-shaped dent on his shiny blond hair.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch! How can a book hurts so much?!" Oz whines, a very British accent pouring out of his mouth while he's rubbing his throbbing head. That is the third time now! Oz is pretty sure there is a bruise forming on his head at this very moment.

"It will hurt more if you keep taking over my body!" snaps Maka in an angry tone, her book hanging warningly in her hand.

"That _thing _was going to kill you!" Oz shoots back defensively. The way this, this _Kishin_ was looking at his friend – like he was going to devour her – has disgusted Oz to no end. Also, for his defense, he was desperate to keep Maka safe and sound, as she is his Contractor, his only hope to go back to the past and his friend, almost a sister to him. And Oz is tired of losing his friends. It hurts too much.

"I could have beaten the Kishin by myself." Maka drones on stubbornly.

"You weren't even conscious." counters-back Oz, a triumphal smirk crawling on his face.

"I had Soul! I could have tried the Demon Hunter again!" she yells back.

"Yeah, you had an equally unconscious Soul at that."

"Shut up!"

"Nope."

"And," Oz persists with a playful grin, "if it weren't for me, you would have…"

"Don't finish that sentence."

"…stayed stuck in there…"

"Don't you dare." snarls Maka, sensing the teasing coming.

"…with _him_…"

"I swear it, do _not_ say what you're about to say."

"…together, _all alone._" Oz taunters, willing himself to not laugh at Maka's horrified expression. Asura was disgusting but teasing Maka is hilarious (when a book isn't murdering him).

"Oz, that's gross! What do you read to get those ideas?" Maka's sour face is priceless to Oz and he bursts out laughing while she whacks her book heartlessly at him.

"Fanfiction." He states and Maka shrieks even more in disgust while he tries to not tear up from the laughing.

"Don't tell me you actually read those lemons! They're not good, it's all trashy and cliché! Oh no, you _did not_ write some, did you?" to her, being the studious girl she is along with being a bookworm means _no erotica novels_. He teased her a lot since he learned that she read Fifty Shades of Grey and other similar books, something very un-Maka.

Then she showed him how the World Wide Web functioned and his mind has ever since been stuck on Fanfiction whenever he had the time, reading stories of Holy Knight, his eyes glued to the very strange screen in front of him, trying to understand how such a miracle was born.

"Nah, but I could do some for you and Soul." He dives quickly as another book flies over his head and hits the wall while Maka fumes at him and he cackles evilly.

Maka groans, annoyed, "You're impossible, Oz."

He chuckles while he sits back on the chair, "_You're_ impossible, Maka."

"Damn Vessalius."

"Stupid Albarn."

He grins at her teasingly while she pouts obstinately. Again, it is funny to joke around Maka, mostly when he sees all the faces she can make in a matter of minutes. Just like with Gilbert.

_Gil._

Oz wonders how he is doing, along Alice. If they managed to track down Glen again. If they are still in the moment in time where he disappeared or if Oz has been placed back in time somehow where when the instant both exact dates collide, time will start marching forward again. The latter is most probable. That's what the deadline he and Maka made is for. Still, he's terrified of what their outcome could be if he doesn't go back to them quickly. Right now though, their searching about time travel leads them to… nothing. Nada. Rien. Zero. _Nothing. _

"Oz?"

The boy blinks and he suddenly remembers where he is, his gaze sweeping over to meet another pair of forest green eyes. In them lie determination, all anger and embarrassment gone. She sees him sometime space out like that, she's used to it and she is perfectly conscious of the problem at hand and what could be the consequences if she doesn't get Oz to go back in time. She also understands how he misses his friends dearly. She's in the same situation about her mom.

"We're going to find something; we're going to find the way to take you back to the past. I wouldn't have done this Contract with you for nothing." Maka grasps his hand tightly, squeezing it reassuringly to remind him that this fight isn't over yet. Not even nearly. She won't let it.

Maka grins at him warmly, "Lumos."

Oz does the same, though more sheepishly, "Nox."

At this moment, the door is not opened but destroyed as splinters of wood with broken pieces of metal hinges fly away, leaving a smoking star-patterned shoe at its place, a body following onwards.

"HAHAHAHA! THE GREAT BLACKSTAR IS HERE TO ENTERTAIN THE NOW AWAKE MAKA!" shouts said blue-haired ninja, pumping his fist in the air.

Immediately, two books fly away at the same time the ninja leaps in the air and he lands on the floor on the other side of Maka's bed, two large dents carved in his head as he bleeds into comatose. Oz suspects it was an encyclopedia this time from Maka though his was the book he managed to evade. Maka takes the autograph BlackStar lends her and she grins while rolling her eyes before she reprimands him to have broken the door (again), letting go of Oz's hand, though he doesn't mind.

The others, meaning Tsubaki, Crona, Liz, Patty, Kid and Soul follow suit and only now then does BlackStar notices the green-eyed blond next to Maka. The others do too.

"Oi! Who are you? How can you arrive more quickly than the Great BlackStar?!" don't mind the capitals on the 'great', it's meant to put more drama in the moment. The subject of the question shifts nervously in his chair under everybody's glare and questioning looks.

"Call me Oz." he finally admits, trying to send a cheerful smile at the other students, "I'm a friend of Maka's and I heard that she was in the infirmary so I came to see her." The group stare at him, still wary of him. Mostly the raven-haired boy, Kid. Maka expected that from the beginning but it still gets her nervous.

Said boy feels a strange aura coming from Oz's presence. Firstly, he notices the clothes he's wearing, the black trench coat, the lace attached around his neck collar, the white blouse underneath the coat, the white gloves in his hands, the black trousers he's wearing along with the knee-high boots, boots that are weirdly mostly used for riding horses. In all honesty, Oz looks like an aristocratic boy from a grand noble family. And his British accent is _not _helping.

Secondly, there is this eerie sensation coming to Kid that Oz almost doesn't seem… human. His skin is a deathly pale and the Shinigami could swear he's seeing tiny flecks of red in the blonde's green eyes. Also, it almost looks like there is an abnormal presence hovering above Oz, like an overwhelming shadow and his soul are sending unnatural wavelengths, like the calm before a storm, where Kid can only see calm wavelengths emanating but he knows, he just _knows_ and _feels _that there is something underneath, rising like a tsunami but never surfacing. Yet.

Maka, on the other hand, knew from the start that all and every meister of the school would be able to sense an otherworldly presence within Oz; she prepared herself for it and searched for a way to protect his Chain's soul from being detected. Because the presence of a Chain in the world is worse than any Pre-Kishin, most of all if it is the most powerful Chain, B-Rabbit. If it weren't for the fact that Maka had put aside her pride and dignity to teach Oz how to use Soul Protect (she nearly got herself killed by witches just to steal a book teaching that technique), he would have the police, the military, the UNIT, the DWMA _and _the Grim Reaper himself chasing him down. But there is still a bit of B-Rabbi's power leaking past the spell, creating the uncanny presence from Oz.

"You're Maka's friend?" Liz asks curiously, although obviously creeped out by Oz's presence, "I've never seen you before, or at the Academy at all."

Yeah, blame that on the fact that Oz spent most of his time at the library and that he lives in the underground tunnels, where the Kishin revived. Nobody would _ever_ think of even trying to search _down there_. Not even Stein. No one would think either that Maka forces him to take classes through her shadow.

"Uh, I've just came here last week and she's the first student I met." now Oz is practically playing his 'cute faced lies' card now. And it works, seeing as Liz faintly blushes at his face along with Patty squealing at him. She could swear there are flowers dancing behind him.

Though there are two particular boys glaring daggers at Oz, who instantly notices it and grins at them sweetly, fueling their irritation. It's easy for them to see Oz as nothing more than a womanizer – which he kinda is when he wants to. Oz could easily imagine Sharon squealing like Patty if she saw their faces right now, probably planning the outcome of their love lives and the demise of one of the boys. If Sharon was here, that is. And in a good mood, seeing in what state he saw Break in. He blinks back tears. Maybe that was the last time he ever saw Break _alive_ again.

Ache, guilt, sadness and overwhelming grief swirl within him and his smile falters.

Maka nudges him with her elbow, "Go to the library, I'll join up later."

Oz doesn't protest and he nods numbly at her before getting up and bolting through the door, suddenly wanting to be desperately alone, wanting to avoid the jealous glares from Soul and Kid, the curious ones from Patty and BlackStar, the slightly nervous one from Liz and the terrified one from the quiet Demon Sword, Crona. Least of all, Oz doesn't want to see Maka's warm gaze locking into his, as if trying to say that everything is going to get fixed. Because it won't.

After all, he is trapped in the future.

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><p><strong>Poor Oz! Away from his friends and family and stuck in the modern world! But still, I'm not done yet, one more chapter to go! Wait for it guys!<strong>

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, Aurevoir and Auf Wedersien!**


	3. Maka in Wonderland

**Chapter three, are you happy? Well, I ain't, I didn't exactly proofread so if there is an error that needs to be corrected, either PM me or post it on the review box!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 3: Maka in Wonderland<p>

3rd Person's PoV

"Tick."

"Tock."

"Lumos."

"Nox."

Those are the words people often hear from a strange pair at the Academy, from a one-star scythe meister and a strange boy always looming around her, where the students don't even know if he is a weapon or a technician. He's most certainly a professional when it comes to wield a scythe, some people even come to consider and assume he's better than Stein. Others, mostly girls, say he certainly is good-looking enough to be a weapon and some would tell that they actually saw bloody-red, deep crimson replace his usually bright green eyes though a great part of the school would ignore those people and seek for other theories. The boy, Oz, was seen – though quite rarely, with a wickedly-sharp red scythe, so the students would go to think that he is a meister but nobody knows who the weapon is.

But back to the subject, the mystery between meister Maka and the odd Oz. Through the week that passed since the Kishin's sudden disappearance, they became the topic of every conversation, which a certain loud-mouth despised. The students of the school noticed lately that the two were close and secretive, talking in low voices, sometimes grinning at each other when they said what looks like code words only they could understand.

Yet, everyone can sense an uncanny tension hovering over them, as the duo seem to be waiting for something and pass most of their free times in the library, always searching books in restricted sections. At each day passing, they seem to get more and more nervous and frantic and not one person gets why. They have become very distant.

Only, no one, nobody, knows the story behind them and least of all the group composing Maka's friends, where the pair was even more elusive, to Kid and Soul's demise and jealousy along with the rest of the other's curiosity. When asked about how the two met, the pair would immediately try to change the subject of the conversation or saying that it doesn't matter, fueling the elusive puzzle.

Maka and Oz are an enigma.

**Flashback**

Maka's PoV

"So, this is the place?" Soul asks next to me, shivering cold wind blowing onto us.

I rub my goose-bumped arms and glance at him, "Yep. There is a legend behind this place, you know? There seem to have been a reason people once called this place the 'Door of the Abyss'." I add in my own little dramatic touch, trying to make my sentence sound gloomier.

"Yeah?" Soul says, curious, "Do tell."

I look over from where we stand, my eyes sweeping to the crumbling walls that had once constituted a proud and beautiful archway, to the cathedral-high ceiling, the paintings decorating it faded and blurred and to the enormous complexly carved double doors, the only thing that had withstood against time's rampage. Soft moonlight filters itself through the broken and opaque glistening shards of broken windows, as if trying to regain its original colorfully vibrant schemes that had disappeared with the dust floating strong in the air, covering everything in layers.

Centuries must have passed with not one living soul stepping a single foot here.

"People used to say," I speak, my voice echoing into the vastness of the nothingness filling this arcade, reverberating all around me, "that there were once guardians of these doors. Chosen ones. Their name was well-known and they were called the Baskervilles. It was said that they were not human, that they would be able to still stand up even after being hit by a fatal blow and that they have the ability to summon fantastic creatures, beings from another world. I read that the Baskervilles could see things none of us can, things that used to shine in that other world and that now it's just a void of darkness. The Baskervilles were supposed to monitor that place, this place called…"

"The Abyss." Soul finishes for me, frowning, "But it's just a myth, right? Those creatures must have been… tamed Pre-Kishins." He shrugs, eyeing the door in front of us warily.

"I'm not sure if it's just a myth. Every legend comes from some sort of truth and Lord Death wouldn't have had sent us here to investigate the disappearances if it was just a myth." I calmly answer, watching over the shadows of the long-destroyed hall, ready to be alerted by any sign of living monster.

Nothing stands except us, everything still and silent, the only hollow sound resonating around us being the moans of the wind blowing into the sky, my cape swooshing to it. Even with the seemingly silence of dread, I can actually _feel_ something humming in the air, pounding into my ears in a hypnotic rhythm, inciting me to sense its dark energy. That's when I see them.

They glow so brightly, the orbs shining all around me, the luminous souls that had been detached from long-gone bodies, lonesome iridescence in the dark curtains of the night. Like stars, they swirl in a celestial dance around me, a cluster of souls directed to…

"The door." I gasp, suddenly clutching Soul in my hands in a flash of blue.

"What about it? Did you sense something?" he asks from the scythe blade, his sense on high alert.

"I didn't saw it before but there is this mass of souls all pointing to the door in front of us. There must be something behind it, possibly the cause of the vanishing people." I scowl, utterly confused. It's just an abandoned door… so why do I feel so much longing for this place?

When I'll think about this moment later when I wake up, the only thing I'll remember is suddenly hearing _her voice._

_«Aha! I finally found you! After all that time, I have finally discovered your hiding place, my little stellar! »_

From thereafter, everything melted into obscurity.

…

"Look! She's waking up!"

"She will be so happy to see her!"

"Yes, yes! How Alice will be happy!" A…lice?

Laughter echoes in my head, childish reverberation of sound gently dancing all around me. I slowly crack one eye open, light filtering through to infill my mind with awareness and wake, momentarily blinding me even with my hair covering my face. I'm conscious that I'm lying on my back but it is not the first thing my mind registers though.

I stare at one single red eye.

Needless to say, I let out a small squeak of surprise before scrambling back a pace from it, staring in sluggish confusion at the person crouched before me. Within the mass of spiky black hair, two equally black cat ears perk up and with a jolt I realize that I'm not even staring at 'someone 'but at 'something', its tail swerving from one way to another, its hands replaced by large black claws over its bent knees.

"Cheshire!" I blurt out before slapping a hand over my mouth. Where did that came from? The weird humanoid cat tilts its head on one side and stares at me with more curiosity.

For a few seconds, I gaze quietly at the cat sniffing me, the bells on the red scarf knitted around his neck jingling to his movements. Then it almost looks like its smiling.

"Lumos!" it shouts cheerfully, its voice strangely masculine. Then, as if sensing someone else's presence, he veers around himself and gazes at a locked door that I hadn't notice up until now. Actually, it's only now that I understand that I'm in a strange room.

I study quietly this odd place, observing the shelves stacked with dolls and the diamond paned windows revealing nothing out of the exterior but blank darkness, the flower vases filled with aromatic roses, the grand-father clock ticking again and again along with the table at the center of the round room, papers drawn all over spread about and the velvet canopy in front of it. I frown at the rich carvings ornamenting all the furniture of this room. This looks like the kind of room a millionaire would have. Where am I?

Disturbed laughing resonates once again around the room and I gape at the dolls suddenly floating toward me, their laughter becoming more and more insane. All senses on high alert, I bolt upright and stand back up on the black and red checkered floor, taking a fighting stance and readying myself for any form of attack. I take a glance at their souls and freeze for a second, astonished. Their souls are not animal, nor are they human at all and least of all, they are not Kishin Eggs. What are they? They almost seem familiar, like I have already seen a soul like this once before…

The door opens and a cheerful voice comes in, halting my thoughts.

"Lumos! Just look at how you grown up!" my gaze follows the owner's voice and gawk at what is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my whole life. I'm not even exaggerating here. She's an angel, quite literally.

Like Soul, she has snowy white hair, so pure it almost blinds me, flowing behind her like wispy strands of air; so long it ends at her knees. She has bright piercing amethyst eyes, meeting my own emerald one with a happy gaze, as if I am a friend she hasn't seen since ever. Her white dress opens at her tights – like my own trench coat – revealing a white frilly skirt adorned by turquoise roses and long slender legs, a white long bow attached around her waist and the front black laced. Her arms are gloved from the elbow, opening up at her hands and equally black laced. Fastened around her neck is a black fastened choker garlanded by the same indigo-colored roses at her skirt. She is absolutely gorgeous. Yet…

"Lumos?" I ask quietly, confused by the name given to me. To be more exact, it's a Latin word that is supposed to mean 'Light'. I go on, "Who's Lumos? Where am I? Who are you?" I bite my lip to refrain myself from going on with a bombshell of questions and decide to stare at the girl intently.

She almost seems surprised by my demand, "You don't know? You liked coming here and play with my toys before! You were the only actually. You were so small…" a nostalgic expressions cross over her features.

I take a few steps back and continue to gaze at her, "I… don't know what you're talking about." I say carefully, watching for any imminent danger, "I don't remember ever coming here." Again, I'm frozen on my tracks when I stare at the girl's soul, amazed by the immense power residing within it, so grand that I can more _feel_ then see that it rivals with Lord Death's. And there is something else, another entity…

"Oh, you must have forgotten me." the girl looks a bit sad by my statement. But then she adds, like an after-thought, "It must have taken your memories away." I stare at her blankly.

"Who are you?" I repeat, more confused than ever.

"I'm Alyss!" now she's back at being cheerful again, smiling sweetly at me before approaching me and hugging me, "I missed you Lumos!" like a stone, I grow still as she presses herself against me before releasing me and picking a blond strand of my hair, "You still have your pig-tails!" Alyss does not seem in the least bothered by my strange hair style and grins at me eagerly.

Before I could utter another question, Alyss suddenly shouts, "Oh, look at the clock! It's tea time already!" suddenly the dolls swarm all around us, singing in a chorus, the cat jumping a bit around and helping them set things up while I am out of the blue being pushed around, not understanding single thing at all of what's going on until I am abruptly sat on a metal chair in front a round table, Alyss smiling eagerly at me, a batch of tea in front of us with biscuits.

"W-wait!" I achieve to say over the dolls' laughter, "Why am I here? What is this place? Why do you keep calling me Lumos?" somehow I'm a bit wary of eating anything of this really weird room so I just resign myself at drinking a bit of tea, looking curiously at Alyss.

"I thought you came here by yourself, did you not? The only way to get in my room is by the Baskerville's doors of the Abyss otherwise you are lost in the deepest depths of the Abyss. But you don't even remember your name?!" she stares wide-eyed at me and I can't help but compare her to Crona. There seems to be an almost childish atmosphere within the two.

"Well, I have to say that my real name is Maka so I think you might be picking out the wrong person?" she stares at me sadly again and for the second time I feel like I am also looking at Crona.

"So that's your real name?" Alyss chuckles and I sense again nostalgia emanating from her, "You used to say that you didn't like your name and that you liked the word 'Lumos'. You said that 'light' suits you." For a few moments I stay silent, musing over her words. A sudden wave of familiarity crashes over me and I sense something within me writhe, as if heeding me, calling me but never really attaining me.

"But no matter! You will forever still be Lumos to me! Actually, Nox came back here too! You called him Nox because you said his soul is like the moon in the night!" again, I feel something stir up within me and I struggle to reach it.

"You know I have Soul Perception?" I ask, frowning. I know nothing of this stranger but she seems to know everything about me? Odd.

"Silly question, of course I do! The lights that were here before were souls too! Waiting for the hundred years of wandering to be over!" I cringe slightly.

"There were souls in here?! Did they get eaten?" I inquire quickly, looking at Alyss' surprised expression.

"No they didn't. They got reincarnated. Why that question Lumos?" it's my turn to stare at her, surprised. Reincarnation? It actually exists? And how could she not know why I asked that question?

"Aha!" she suddenly shrieks, as if she got a bingo, "You hunt Kishin Eggs now! I forgot how time moves fast!" I blink at her. The dolls chuckle with her, which frankly, gives in a very creepy effect on me and makes me squirm uncomfortably on my chair.

"Of course Alyss, she's not from your timeline!" a stuffed white bunny says to her.

A girly doll joins in, floating above her, "You met her very long after!"

"Maybe she could help you! She's a fragment!" I'm frozen on my place by that last sentence every doll cheers at her.

"Well…" the albino girl seems a bit hesitant, a strange shadow flashing over her features, "Maybe I could…But what if she ended up like Alice too? I don't want to lose Lumos…" she precipitously gets up, her eyes wide with sudden terror.

"What if she meets Jack!" she screeches, pacing rapidly around the room, her hands suddenly on her hair, "Lumos won't resist, she could… she could…" I get up too, confused.

"I'm here, you know." I mumble at her, "You could tell me if something's wrong, if you know me so well." I really don't know who Alyss is but she's obviously getting all worked up because of something linked to me. She turns to look at me intensively.

"I could…" she grabs her hair and jerks on it, a horrified expression defining her traits, "You could…_ NOO!_" she screams that last word with vehemence, and the floor rumbles under my feet, like an earthquake. Cracks appear on the floor but nothing else but the sound of loud sobbing reaches my ear.

"If Lumos died, it would be my fault! Again!" Alyss sobs while I advance at her, the dolls on my heels.

"Alyss…" I say quietly, feeling really awkward about the situation, "I don't know what's going on but maybe there's another alternative to solve your, err, problem. But right now, I really need to join my friend. He's waiting for me outside the door of the Abyss." She looks at me with tears spilling over her cheeks and I feel really bad for abandoning her in this mess. But I can't even imagine how Soul must be panicking outside the door, probably thinking I disappeared for good.

Out of nowhere, as quickly as it came, Alyss stops sobbing and grabs me by my shoulders while shouting, "Another alternative! That's it! You're brilliant Maka, Lumos!" at least she called me by my name. Although, she's really starting to creep me out.

She lets me go and spins around to look at the cat, "Cheshire! Bring me Alice! We already have Lumos and Nox! That's all we need!" an unsounding message pass between them, before Cheshire's eyes become wide with astonishment and he runs out of the door and disappears.

She looks at me with a wide smile, as if she hadn't cried her eyes out a few seconds ago, "You liked to play with my toys! Mostly Nox, though Alice beats you to the count on that! Let's see him again!" she walks to the one of the immense shelves filled with dolls and picks one up, a black bunny dressed in a red trench coat and a large pink bow.

"Come on out now, B-Rabbit! We need you!" she cheers and light engulfs the bunny, a black and red one, growing so bright yet dark I shield my eyes and back away a few steps. Meanwhile I manage to see the form of the small rabbit changing, growing larger and taller. Wind swirls around us and it suddenly stops, the glow dissipating in beautiful sparks that fall like snowflakes on me.

A groan interrupts my train of thoughts and I level my arm down from my face to stare at B-Rabbit's new appearance. I gawk at him. We could as well be siblings. He wears the same emerald greens eyes as mine, only his are a few shades brighter than mine. Sunny blond hair falls in messy spikes over his face and he wears what looks like black Victorian clothing. He appears to be at the same age as mine. Our gaze meet and we both hold it, studying our resemblance. For me though, I observe how there is a certain sadness overshadowing his eyes, how it seems there is a heavy weight pounding on him.

"You're Lumos." he finally says, his voice high and young.

"And you're Nox." I answer back.

* * *

><p><strong>Yes, I really like the idea of Maka being named Lumos and her calling Oz Nox. Pretty cool, eh? Actually, I got the idea from Harry Potter but whatever. How the hell did Oz came back in the first place? What's Alyss secret plan? Not telling! Let's keep the mystery up and wait for next chapter, shall we?<strong>

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, Aurevoir and Auf Wedersien!**


	4. Light and Dark

**This time, I proofread it all! So tada! Chapter 4 is up on the count! Dnace, laugh, celebrate people, I put my heart in this! *glares everybody* That's an order. Just Kidding! Just read on, ignore my rambling!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. I'm just not _that_ insane. *weeps***

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 4: Light and Dark<p>

Oz's PoV

Lumos has grown up.

For starters, she is quite the tall girl. With long slender legs and thin body, everything in her screams 'tall'. Though her hair is still kept in pig-tails, giving her appearance a juvenile demeanor, her eyes aren't as childlike as before. Instead, her wide green eyes burn with ferocious determination, emerald fire blazing within.

I never knew how she came here, in Alyss' room. She was just suddenly here one day, dancing with Cheshire in her orange plain dress, two pink bows lacing her ash blond hair up. When Alice was waiting for her twin to let her go back in her body, the two would bicker as to whose turn it was to play with my tiny rabbit self, though it was mostly Alice the winner – and I did not complain. Where she thought 'Oz' was a great name for me, Lumos had simply decreed that 'Nox' was better. When Alice had asked why…

_"His soul is like the night! Mama told me that 'night' is 'nox' in Latin! I like Nox!" she had declared proudly, smiling cheerfully._

I always thought there was something strange about Lumos – or Maka, since it seems to be her real name. When she came over here, I constantly got the impression that her eyes could see everything within me. My happiness when near Alice, my gratitude toward Lacie, my sheer wonder about being alive. My every emotion. I always felt an odd tingling sensation within my very essence when her forest green eyes landed on me, as if she was analysing me.

Actually, she even had a crisis one day. The prickling feeling had intensified and she kept looking all around herself, looking lost. She was sat on a couch and she kept rubbing her head with her tiny hands, as if a headache was hammering on her. Then she all of the sudden started screaming, writhing on the couch for no reason, alerting Alice who had stopped trying to decapitate my ears and ran to her, me in her hands.

_"Lumos?" she had asked while poking the child's head._

_"Too much! I see too much! They're everywhere! In the whole universe! In Wonderland! I don't want to see them, it hurts! There are too much!" the girl had cried and I felt sad for her, even though I never knew why she was suffering. She had fainted a second later, slumping soundlessly in the canopy. _

_Alice had just stared in immense confusion at the little girl, "She's weird." I couldn't have agreed better with her. _

I guess I know why now. From what I heard, she can see souls. I don't know how that is possible but she obviously can. And I can also guess that she had seen all the souls in the world the day she had her odd sickness.

It's strange seeing Maka back after all these years – scrap that, _centuries_ of absence. Even more after everything had happened since. A girl who simply vanished in the nature just pops back up after a very long time out of nowhere, not even remembering us, not knowing that she got here with the doors of the Abyss and not even aware of what the Abyss is, and above all else, reappearing when chaos is reaching its peak in the real world. I'm conscious that this might be a bit insulting, but just _how much more ignorant is she?_

Of course, Alyss was happy the second she was aware of Lumos' arrival, as happy as she was when I also came back here. But she all knows too well how I got sent back into the Abyss, the way Glen had forced me yet again in a portal when both our scythe and swords had clashed in the timeline of the Tragedy of Sablier, and trapped me here, in the future and how critic the situation is. Alyss is conscious of all that.

Still, I can't help but think of how Lumos changed. She always looks rather younger than what she really is but her eyes are mature. She wears what looks like a trench coat that opens up in a long cape swerving around her ankles. Even more bizarre is the short… red kilt she adorns and the shoes – or boots, it's a bit hard to tell – at her feet. Maka always wore unusual clothing, even as a child. The only thing that doesn't seem out of place is the green and white striped tie fastened around her neck.

"So," Lumos starts, a certain authority in her tone that doesn't miss to surprise me, "can any of you two tell just what the hell is going on?" she stares at me intently and I can only know that she is most likely scanning my soul again. I still don't get though why she doesn't have any recollection of us.

"I am a bit confused too, you know." Technically, yes I am confused. But a few seeds of ideas are implanted in my head already.

Maka leans against a wall, frowning, "Then I'm very sorry to tell you this but people are vanishing Alyss! My friend and I came to this door you talked about to investigate this case, so that it wouldn't happen ever again. I don't understand what is happening, why I am here, who you are or where I am but I need to know why those people are disappearing. Do you know anything about this Alyss? And don't lie; I will immediately know if you do." It appears as if there is an accusation under her words, suspicion tainting it along with frustration.

Alyss smiles a sad smile at the blond and answers, "Yes, I do. It's really all my fault. I caused a lot of trouble." As of lately, Alyss seems to lose her primly insanity, letting guilt replace it along with those words that she seem to repeat a lot.

Maka walks over to the albino and grabs her hands, "I can fix this. I can help you. I'm a meister and my friend is a Demon Weapon. We can help you." Those terms have no meaning to me but Alyss seems to understand them.

"You can't." she responds her calmly, "It's the timequakes that are the cause." Both Lumos (really hard to find her a permanent name) and I frown, a question mark on our faces.

She must have seen our puzzled expressions since she explains herself, "A timequake is one of the repercussions the Abyss has over time and space. It's Glen's work. In Sablier's timeline, he is currently changing the past and like an earthquake, time energy rushes over in the future, changing it. Distorting it. People who live near the doors of the Abyss would eventually get affected, they would be projected both in the past or the future and instead of gradually stopping, the timequakes will just happen more often and more powerful." I can see Alyss' words sinking into Lumos' mind, her eyes widening to them as mine scowl. She opens her mouth to utter a question but I beat her to the punch.

"Le… Glen is doing this? Why can't you do anything?" I ask Alyss but her answer slightly surprises me, though not as much as I thought it would.

The albino's sad expression is suddenly gone, replaced by her wide eager smile, "But I am! It's my fault so I should repair all this! But let's start with showing both of your memories to each other!" I'm already used to Alyss' mood swings but _this?_

_"What?"_ we both shout horrified. Alyss' grin grows wider, disturbing even.

"Of course your memories should be shared!" she chimes giddily, "Why not?" then she snatches both our hands before pulling them to grab each other's wrists.

Bright golden lines, like luminous veins, materialize themselves before going to rope themselves around our wrists, linking us together. My heart suddenly beats louder against my chest, racing a thousand miles per second, a loud pounding in my ears, like the sound of drums and I feel like I'm diving into nothingness, that I am drowning. I barely notice the sky blue wisps of light joining the golden ones from Lumos' side, as dark crimson comes in from me, my awareness sinking lower and deeper in blackness.

"Bind the Black Bloodstained Rabbit and the soulless girl! Let their darkest secrets be revealed!" the toys on the shelve sing, Alyss laughing softly with them.

"Their essences swirl, let's meddle them together! The rift between memories is breached!" Lumos and I fall on our knees, under Alyss' crazed cackling and the doll's maddening chorus.

"Madness…" Maka rasps, her face scrunching up as if in pain, "There is… too much madness in… this room…" I don't know what she is talking about.

"Will their bloody skeletons in the cupboard come out? Hihi… hehehe…. HAHAHAHA!" the dolls laugh and I suddenly feel something crazy hit me, inciting me to laugh with them but I resist. My guts are telling me that I might as well go mad if I do.

"Keep on to your sanity!" Lumos shouts above their laughing, her glare striking me like lightning, "How the hell are they doing this?!" she asks to nobody in particular, looking particularly angry.

"I don't know! What _are_ they doing?" I yell back at her, both of us lying on the checkered floor, panting and barely conscious.

She stares at me as if I was stupid, "You don't know?!" and somehow, she succeed into making me feel stupid too.

Seeming to understand my ignorance, she answers, "They're forcing a Soul Resonance into us!" A soul what?

"Let them synchronise! Let them be filled with hysteria!" Alyss sings, her voice rising and falling.

"Bind Lumos and Nox!" their incessant screaming shreds my mind into a billion of pieces and I give in a cry, Lumos' mere presence barely keeping me sane.

"Bind Light and Dark!"

And suddenly, everything fades into black.

Maka's PoV

That's it, she's crazy. Alyss is utterly _insane._

I never knew anybody able to force a Soul Resonance to two people, one of them not even human to start with. Not even Stein is able to do that. To force two souls into synchronisation, to be stripped to the very core against their will, that's just… cruel.

But it can't be stopped. In a second, I am transported from the world of reality into the immensity of the universe of the mind, hurled into the familiar hurricane of thoughts, emotions and reminiscences. Through the obscurity, like the blazing fire of the moon, Oz's soul shines in the night. Then suddenly, immaculate whiteness. Fiery brilliance. The moon turns black and the night sky, into pure white.

Like pixels, I see cubes of all heights, floating in the middle of the void of snowy endless sky, flashing before my wonder-filled eyes in streaks of black, stormy grey and fluorescent orange, like dysfunctional shooting stars. They bug, like a computer screen would start bugging, dissonant glitches, dissonant noise reaching to heed their call at me, a requiem to unfurl their secrets to me. The cubes twist, glitching deformation, a sign that something within Oz's memory area isn't functioning right. Like memory loss, for example. Amnesia.

With our minds joined, a discordant symphony plays within our souls, holding my fiery rhythm and Oz's melancholy, along with his malfunctions. I lift my hands in my never-ending fall and black threads spread from them, going about in the sky in a wild chase to catch the cubes. I didn't even think about it, it just came naturally to me. The sharp-edged, spiked black filaments touch some of the cubes, attaching themselves like a spider web to them and I am suddenly hurled into a platform constructed by the cubes, watching events replay in front of me, the glitching images of a girl with long silky chocolate brown hair and amethysts eyes squeezing the same rabbit that was Oz not long ago. She is the exact replica of Alyss.

_«Oz! Your name is from now on Oz! »_ information starts seeping in my mind and I suddenly feel his presence within it, curious but a bit afraid about the happenings.

_«What's happening?! Where am I? It feels like you're intruding me! »_that last sentence ends in an accusation and I mentally sigh.

_«Don't worry; it's our minds that are connected. We can feel each other's feelings and see our memories. I won't go too far, I promise. As long as you do the same. »_ I add my own menace at the end of my phrase and I feel him shudder.

The hologram changes into another one, revealing Oz lying on wet grass, his expression empty and deprived of any emotion.

_«Your hands are empty… » _his name is Jack Vessalius. And he created the Tragedy of Sablier.

_«I will reduce them all into nothingness of my own hands. »_ insanity was crawling into his soul, the day he went to Isla Yura's manor.

_«YOU ARE AN IDIOT! » _and this hot-tempered boy is Elliot Nightray. He is the heir of a… Dukedom! Whoa. And he also always bickers with Oz because the latter is always so nice to him and he obviously seems to have a cr…

_«He did not! Just what are you thinking about?! Boys with boys, that's disgusting! » _he interrupts the memory and switches to another.

_«MAAKKAAA CHOP! » _even in the mental world I can hit people with books. I hear a satisfying cry from my mind and I nod to myself.

_«And just what _you _are thinking about?! Welcome to the 21th century, idiot! Boys can get with boys and girls can get with girls without any problem except stupid people like you throwing bullshit to them! » _I yell back angrily at him. He appears on the cubic platform in front of me, a carved dent on his head and shoots a glare which I return back gladly, hopefully with more emphasize.

_«That's not right! It's not natural for people of the same gender to get together! And what are you talking about? We're in the 19th century! » he retorts back heatedly. _

I snort indignantly, _«Tsk, pathetic. The people of your time really don't know how to think by themselves, now don't they? Before it was all sexism against woman and racism for blacks along with slavery. Look at us now! Haha! »_ Just to prove my point, I stop Oz dead on his tracks from watching more of my memories and show one by myself, revealing Shibusen to him along with all the cities Soul and I went in the world.

_«Whoahh! You have trains! Underground! That's ingenious! And the cities are amazing! And… wait. Blacks are walking in the same school as whites? How? »_ Oz stares at me wide-eyed and I give in another exasperated groan at his ignorance.

Then I smirk at him, amused, _«History, boy. It's History that happened. Ya know Abraham Lincoln? President of the United States? »_ at his perplexed expression, I want to bang my head against a wall.

_«Forget it. It'll happen in not long anyways. My turn now. »_ I gently nudge Oz's soul a bit and his image flickers in front of me, a surprised expression painted across his face. The memory I've been searching shows up and reveal Alice's Chain form. Words pour in my head, like data inside an informatics system and I suddenly know what a Chain is. More and more cubes swirl around me, attracted by the black threads like the Earth is attracted by the Sun.

_«Your sin is your very existence! »_ Oz is being sunk into this world called the Abyss at his ceremony of coming of age.

_«Glen, let me present you the Chain I made a Contract with… Oz, the black rabbit. »_ Jack Vessalius again. But now that I notice it… he looks exactly like Oz!

_«This body does absolutely not belong to you. »_ this is twisted. This is sick.

My blood freezes though when I hear my own voice, though younger, cheering, _«His soul is like the night! » _and I see my little-self gazing at a curious Alice. So I did come here before, but… why? I try to look deeper in Oz's memory but straightway, I feel a throbbing pain close on my mind, sharp spikes piercing through me from the cubes.

_«Lumos! »_ Oz shrieks and the cubes instantly cease from shredding me before shooting away from me, as if my mere presence was a danger to them. I grimace while my injuries cure themselves.

_«I'm fine. It's the memories of me; I can't approach them without getting a painful headache. I wonder why... »_ I end my phrase in an ominous threat and Oz visibly gulps.

He talks hastily, looking at me intently, _«I don't know why it did that! Trust me, I can remember you perfectly. I don't even know how you came here actually. You were just there one day. »_ not sensing any lie from his soul, I decide to mull over his words and what I just saw. Even he doesn't know. Why was I in Alyss' room? Why his memories won't permit me access? Is there something hidden in here? How did even get there in the first place?

Though I don't have the time to think more as another wave of memories comes to crash down on me. Images swirl in a wild whirlwind and it's almost too much for me to take in but looking at Oz's crouched self with his hands gripping his hair, I could say that I am doing better. Chains, Trumps, Contractors, Pandora, Gilbert, Break, Mad Hatter, Sharon Rainsworth, amnesia, B-Rabbit, other dimensions, Contractor's seal, the Will of the Abyss, the Baskervilles and their leader, Glen Baskerville, it's too much, I can't even think anymore.

_«STOP RIGHT NOW! »_ I screech and as if on command, everything pauses and I fall on my knees onto the polished cubes, panting, and my hands curled into tight fists. Oz is in no better shape than me. Our souls are slowly becoming more and more inharmonious, our Resonance is fading.

_«I can't take it anymore. Let's stop here Oz. »_ pronouncing his name is a bit weird, coming from my mouth. He nods and the landscape dies away, leaving me for a few, blissful moments, unconscious. Then reality strikes me and I sit bolt upright, hardly breathing before seeing Oz groggily raise his head and sit on the cold floor. Our bodies are a glowing blue, a sign of our Resonance but it quickly dissipates in the air.

"You're back!" Alyss beams at us, a proud smile on her face and for a few seconds, I hesitate between strangling her, Maka Chop her into oblivion or just do as if she doesn't exist.

Oz takes the decision for me, "I think this is the last time I am ever doing a Soul Resonance. I thought I was going to explode!" he shakes his head as if trying to prove himself of still being alive.

"Try to do that all the time with a boy with black blood then." I mutter and he chuckles a bit before looking at Alyss again, a scowl mixed with a curious expression over his features.

He asks the question I don't dare to, "Why do this to us Alyss?" at that she laughs, a sweet kind of laugh, vacant of the insanity I felt earlier. Actually, everything is awfully quiet now, like everyone is holding their breath.

"I think Lumos knows!" she sing-songs happily and I take a bitter expression.

I say slowly at him, "I think Alyss was hoping that I would want to make a Contract with you, Oz." I stare fixedly at my white gloves, angry at myself for falling for her plans, "And she's right." I meet Oz's now serious green eyes and hold it, "I _do_ want to." I get up, my hands on my hips while I glare my best glare at him.

"Let's make a pact!" I yell at him, outstretching my hand toward him, "I want to be your Contractor and even though Alice already made a Contract with you, I don't care. I'm gonna get you out of here and I'll help you save the past and future." Oz picks my hand, though slowly and hesitantly.

"I don't want another person to get hurt because of me. You've seen enough to know that." My grip on his hand doesn't falter and I keep staring at him.

"Oh goody, welcome to the club." I smirk at him, sending him a knowing look that clearly says 'Soul nearly killed himself for me so don't you start on me!' to what he sighs.

Then he lifts his head back up, more solemn, "Then I accept the pact, Maka Albarn, Lumos. You know what's supposed to happen next." My left hand glows, a razor-sharp black and grey blade materializing from wrist. Without letting him time to react, I swiftly slice through the whole of his left forearm, dark crimson liquid spraying my blade while Alyss lets out a squeak of delight along with all the toys of the room. I have to make fight of myself to not simply punch her and shut the damn toys up.

"Hey!" Oz bellows crossly, gripping his injured arm and I smirk yet again at him.

"Well, I can't just let you change your mind." I lift my blade above my head and let the drips of blood fall into my mouth, the coppery taste engulfing it while I swallow it, trying to not let it linger too long.

Oz's body flickers before my eyes, blurring so much he becomes just a mere shadow of darkness that whirlwinds around me, spiraling closer and closer to me until the it's sucked straight into my own shadow, a pair of red eyes gleaming from within.

"What's all the show for?" I ask mockingly, eyeing his form disappearing into my shadow, "To court me?" I can feel his embarrassment.

"Not at all! It's just to add more drama!" I roll my eyes at him and the darkness is completely engulfed.

I turn to Alyss, "I don't want to destroy your room Alyss. Can I go somewhere more spacious? Please?" my voice isn't mine. It is doubled over by Oz's and I can sense his presence within me, a very odd sensation that takes a bit too much of intimate space. It's going to take some time to get used to it. Along with the fact that I shared my most intimate feelings with a complete stranger.

"Of course! And…" she sees more hesitant now, a bit shy before she meets my eyes with her lavender ones, gratitude in them, "thank you." I just nod, a bit nervous. She lifts her hands and the landscape disappears, leaving instead the black waters of the Abyss a hundred of feet below me.

Before I even touch its still surface, a bloody red scythe is summoned into my hands and I grab it, the familiar feeling of metal handle against gripping palm and fighting skills taking over me, inciting me to execute a few complicated spins of the weapon before making a slice through thin air, light blazing into my blinded eyes as it tears apart the darkness of the Abyss along with space, shredding it. I slip into the sizzling brilliant crack and adrenaline rushes through my veins as I freefall into it, the scythe disappearing from my hands.

"Hang on Oz!" I yell and I feel him nod in agreement.

Then I hear a vaguely familiar voice reach my ears, a whispering, "I wish you luck, sliver of mine." My heart is hammering against my chest while my eyes widen in shock. Who was talking to me? I can feel the name at the tip of my tongue but I just can't _grab_ on to it. How frustrating!

I hear what seem to be doors opening and a very reassuring voice yelling my name before I am projected out of this white nothingness and a pair of arms slips around my back, freezing wind blowing into my face along with the hot one from behind me, where the light is coming from. I straightaway pull off Soul who is staring at me with hysteric eyes, looking at the Baskerville's door of the Abyss close with a thundering 'boom!' Though it wasn't fast enough for me to not miss the silhouette of a girl with flowing white hair stare at me.

"Maka! You're okay?!" Soul yells at me, frantically searching with his red eyes any injury on me. I cover my mouth with my hands, pretending to cough a bit when I'm really wiping away the drops of blood I drank earlier.

"I'm fine! Don't worry about me!" I reassure him, straightening myself to prove him.

Then he makes a move toward the door, and I slap his hand away from it, yelling "Don't touch it! It's dangerous!"

He stares at me, scowling, "What do you mean? What's in there? You've been against it for a whole hour and you never answered when I tried calling you! I thought for a moment you were in a coma!" I bit my lip, repressing the urge to tell him what just happened and I opt for telling him only one part of the truth, my guts screaming to _not_ tell anybody about this.

I put on a puzzled expression and look at the door, "The second I touched it… I wasn't here anymore. I was in this strange place, it was all black and there was just endless black water… It was weird but it looks like the ruins of a city are inside and I saw some creatures in them, they weren't human, or anything terrestrial to be frank and they acted savagely, attacking each other. I saw a crack in the air, just floating there so I went straight into it and I came back here." I hear a muffled laughing in my head and I hesitate to Maka Chop Oz again. I turn to look at a still grimacing Soul.

"We can't touch this door. There is an entire world inside of it. I want to report this to Lord Death." He shakes his head while following me outside the hallway and what an hour earlier I haven't known to be the ruins of the Sablier, saying "You're sure about this? I can't help but doubt a bit about what you're saying."

I glare at him, "I'm not crazy and you know that." he sighs in a resigned way.

"Whatever you say Maka. At least you're safe. I thought I was going to have a heart attack!" he spits sarcastically and I feel a tad guilty of making him worry like that but to be honest; I don't have a single regret about what I just did. Though Oz clearly disagrees with that.

_«He may not know that but you _are_ crazy. Just making a Contract with me is insane Lumos! We don't have much time! »_ at that I grin inwardly.

_«First of all, my real name is Maka though I don't mind Lumos either. Second of all, you clearly haven't seen the craziest about me, that's for sure! Welcome to the freak show Nox! »_

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><p><strong>So this is how the infamous Lumos and Nox met! Also, don't be surprised by Oz' hum... <em>insulting<em> comment about gays. He's from what? The 19th century right? It's normal he thinks like that (sadly). I would have liked to add more stuff but then again, my chapter would have probably hit the 6 000 words if I did, "_" Ah well, I'll just have to wait until I can write a real novel to do it! What did you think of this chapie? I'm just at the beginning of my story so I want to know what YOU think about it! In any ways, thanks a bunch for reading my story, you're all wonderful for that!**

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, Aurevoir and Auf Wedersien!**


	5. Of date spies and investigators

**Here you go, chapter 5! Though, I keep having this feeling that this is a boring chapter *bangs my head against a wall in shame* Anyhow, you could look at it from another angle. It's certainly is more lighter and humoristic than the other chapters. Still sorry for the dullness though! And the fact that I didn't post anything last week. *gets stabbed***

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 5: Of date spies and investigators<p>

Oz's PoV

"I was wondering if you would arrive Kid! What took you so long?" she asks in curiosity, her emerald green eyes glittering like stars.

"Liz really wanted me to change into a more_ 'appropriate attire to this special moment'_ as she said it." He says with a roll of his golden eyes, scoffing while she chuckle.

"Well it's not like anybody can fight her fashion side."

"More like fashion disease if you ask me."

Both Soul and I are behind the sofa of Maka's apartment, peering at Maka and Kid at the entrance chatting away with big goofy smiles, glaring at the duo with as much hatred and death vibes as possible, hoping with all our hearts that they can sense it.

"Hunting rifle lock and loaded, ready to fire, sir." I growl under my breath at Soul who nods satisfyingly at the weapon in my hands.

"Grenade equipped, prepared to launch at target. Waiting for attack." He answers back at me and I adjust my grip on the rifle.

"Should we use later on flying missiles on our aim, sir? It would enable him to move some more." I grunt, still watching the two laugh and joke around as if we're not plotting one of their deaths.

Soul retorts, his ruby eyes still glued to Kid and Maka, "Useless, it would be better for defense." His fingers are twirling a sharp hunting knife that has materialized out of nowhere but I know better than to ask how he got it.

Then he seems thoughtful, tapping his chin like a detective would, "Although, I'd say it would a good separation to use that flamethrower you bought." I try not too much to squeal in delight and pull out said artillery from its hiding place, grinning from ear to ear.

Kid leans to her and whispers something inaudible at her ear while we both stiffen our weapons at ready. But being a Chain and so, a supernatural creature, I have a better hearing than anybody else's, meaning I can hear clear as day what he's saying. And Maka's cheeks are turning bright pink.

"It would be nice if we could have a bit more alone time together, without any disturbance watching us. It is a date after all." I can swear on Gil's hat that there was more under his words than what he's currently saying. To say the least, I'm irked up. Before I could gunshot the damn Reaper into oblivion though, Soul squeezes my shoulder to remind me that I'm not the only one who is boiling angry and that we're in the same boat. Well, almost.

"Well then, I'll make a warning sign to you; let me remind you that I could castrate you with a spoon if you try anything." Both Soul and I are lying on the floor, our weapons abandoned while we're silently laughing our butts off at Kid staring wide eyed at a smirking Maka, her hands on her hips in a defying way.

I make a 'perfect' sign with my fingers and Soul shakily nods in agreement while tears corner his eyes. I look over my shoulder to where Maka is to see Kid sigh exasperated at the blond, his cheeks flushed red. Both of them are dressed up in elegant attire and though it's still really weird to see how fashion evaluated with time to come to these… these _thin and skinny clothing_, both Kid and Maka still look great in their respective smoking (as they call those anyways).

Surprisingly, Maka looks very pretty with her hair let down and dressed in these men apparel and Kid looks _way too seductive_ for my taste. Or rather, for Maka's sake. Oh yes, the damn boy asked her on a date. In front of everybody, this including me and Soul. We didn't take it well. So Kid may as well prepare himself for a _very_ slow and _very_ painful death.

"Okay…" Kid mutters embarrassingly, his cheeks flushed red, "Can we, um, kinda skip the awkward moment and go?" he shuffles on his feet nervously, like a little schoolboy. So it's the shy boy tactic, huh? Not getting away with that, oh no you won't.

"I would like to buuutttt…." Maka stretches the last word, keeping the suspense up before she suddenly adds in a yelling, "I have two boys on my back with artillery on their hands, which are planning your near death and it would be really nice if they could just _let. Me. Go._" We both groan loudly under her glare, still grasping the weapons as if we are cradling a baby.

"Let you go with _him?_ Without safety guards? You're kidding yourself!" Soul snorts at Maka who sends as much anger through her eyes at us as possible. So she did sense our death vibes. That's nice.

"Sorry but if wanna get him, you'll have to move past us first." I get this sudden feeling Soul just set a ticking bomb on zero.

_"Makaaaa CHOP!"_ Okay, even for a Chain having just one free night, that hurts _sooo much._

"NOOO!" I screech in grief at the broken weapon before me, "My flamethrower! Oh, why did you do this to my precious?! Do you know how much that cost?!" Soul pats me on my back while I weep the object's death by thick encyclopedia book.

"I told you Oz, no artillery! Same thing goes for you, Soul!" Maka reprimands us, pointing an angry finger at us while Kid behind her facepalms, mouthing us, 'I told you not to show them to her.'

Maka makes a move toward then stops, her back to us, "Soul that includes the bazooka." I glare at him and Soul sends me a sheepish look.

"Oh come on! Did you see what this thing can do?!" he whines and Maka starts tapping her foot rapidly on the ground, waiting.

_"Soul."_ She growls and we both gulp.

It's my turn to pat his back reassuringly while the boy gives in a cry of anguish at the sudden book shooting and breaking the armament in half. At least there were no explosion.

"Oh, why?! Why break such a beauty?! It had made so many achievements and would have gone far in life." he cries out solemnly while shaking his head in sorrow while I am still rubbing his back.

"It fought valiantly our cause. We shall never forget the number of times it oppressed every boys that had tried with all their might to steal your Meister's heart." Geez, now I speak like Break. Oops, wrong thought.

_Don't think of what hurts_, I tell myself.

Maka doesn't seem over with us though. "Throw the grenades away Soul."

"Why should I? I should keep them instead for precautions; I'm so not letting you out of my sight with the creep!"

"Hey! I'm here you know!" shouts the interested.

"Throw them away. Or else." With Maka, 'or else' never means good.

"Or else what? You're going to recite me the definition of 'grenade' to me?" Soul scoffs.

"No. If you don't throw them out, I'm gonna make-out with Kid right at your face."

_"WHAT?! YOU WOULDN'T!"_ we screech at the top of our lungs, horrified. Yet Maka is already toward Kid, pulling his stunned form toward her with a smirk on her face while I shoot a death glare at Soul.

Immediately we snatch the grenades out of a backpack where Soul kept them for the time being (well, until we could blow Kid's head up) and we threw some of them by the window, hearing large explosions and smoke drifting up while we whistle innocently.

"Tsk, boys." Maka mutters while shaking her head before following Kid outside, adding in a louder voice, "Now I'm off! And don't forget to _not_ stalk me off! And the panzerfaust stays in the basement!" the door slams shut and like every sane man who watches his-almost-little-sister-slash-past-friend-slash-Contractor leave at the arm of boy who had made an almost pervy comment earlier, we still follow the two outside, the cool air a good change from the hot humid day (still not used to it). And like every cautious man, we _did_ bring the panzerfaust out with us.

I look over at the night sky to meet the moon's eerie gaze on me, as if laughing down only at me and at my fate. It wouldn't surprise if it did. There were so many twists in my life that I could as well receive the price of 'Plot Twists in Life' or 'Most Wanted Chain' and that the moon has decided to humor me by revealing that it's actually a Chain and can take this creepy shape. I never asked.

We move as silently as foes after Kid and Maka's trace, careful to stay a good distance from Maka's permanent Soul Perception radius but close enough to watch them from afar. As recluse as I was before my ceremony of coming-of-age, I never did this kind of thing, spying a date and it's a bit exciting. I keep thinking that something will happen and I guess by how on edge Soul is too, he thinks the same.

Kid seems constantly nervous, as if he can sense that we're peeking into him and Maka. I guess you can blame that on first dates, it's normal. But what I'm really looking are the buildings. I don't come from this timeline so I keep letting my gaze wonder over the city's architecture, its buildings stacked on each other like toys and how hectic they are. Here could be a market and right next to it could be what Soul calls a 'video game store', full of odd technologic stuff that are way too complicated for me to understand and there, there would be a boutique for dark occults, which I find stranger since meisters and their weapons normally hate anything magic-related.

"Like the city view Oz?" Soul asked me not long ago while we were eating 'french fries', which by the way, tastes great even with all the salt. I simply nod in response, not sure what to say else so much I am absorbed by it. He chuckled.

Though my energy quickly dies down when I start getting bored of watching Maka and Kid speak from afar, everything getting dull at some point. I even start wanting to go back to the forbidden books I am not allowed to read concerning odd events that had happened in the past three centuries in England, where I would search anything Abyss-related.

"I feel like this is getting boring." I finish by grumbling at Soul when we walk through the streets, grenades still in his satchel. That backpack wasn't our only hiding spot; we were smart enough to hide some elsewhere.

He gives me an eyeful before suddenly grabbing my wrist and tugging me closer to where Kid and Maka are, sitting in a bench listening to a small group of musicians playing in a park, other people clustering in, further away.

"Then let's raise the stakes then and try to listen what they have to say." He tells me with a smirk and I follow him, curious and worried. Curious because I would like to know too what they are talking about and worried since the more time I waste here, the more is wasted to save the past and future and the more timequakes there are, meaning more people disappearing. The latter is starting to win over my mind. But still, it feels nice to have a little break from all this hell.

We shuffle a bit through the people until we reach the abandoned warehouse directly behind where Maka is. As close as we can get to hear them talk, we move under a broken window, its broken shards still glistening on the cemented floor, our feet stepping on them when we march as quietly as possible to listen in from under the window. We catch words drifting to us. They seem to be on heavy discussion.

"… about Oz?" my ears perk up at my name and I glance sideways to see Soul smirking at me, whispering a "Yahtzee." at me. No idea what that means.

"It's just that lately you have been, well… distant. You've been so secretive with him and you have stayed longer than usual at the library. I wanted to ask you in private about why, without anybody bothering us. I can keep a secret." Kid says and I can easily imagine him having a staring contest with Maka. I suddenly feel as if I am being glared at.

_«Oz, I know you're here. » _I mentally sigh at that.

_«Is my soul that obvious? »_ I mentally ask her, even though I already know the answer and am mentally slapping myself for thinking she wouldn't notice me.

"I don't see the problem with staying longer than usual at the library and Oz is kind of a bookworm too." Maka says to Kid, a tone of reproachfulness in her voice.

Cerebrally though, she is snorting me an _«Of course I can, moron! You're my Contractor, our souls are constantly linked, and it's kind of like being a human GPS really. Both of us know will always know where the other is. »_ I am a bit surprised by that bit of information. That must explain why I was able to easily find Alice – or rather her corpse – in Cheshire's dimension.

Kid gives a groan, "It's not that, it's your attitude that's been worrying me. You've been very cold toward us and whenever we've asked where Oz comes from or how you two met, you either whack us or plain ignore the question. Why is that?" I can feel Soul's red gaze piercing through me and I try to look nonchalant.

Instead of asking what I have in mind, I blurt out a _«What is GPS? Is it like magic? » _I instantly sense a feeling that could compared to the desire to bang my head against a wall and I straightway know that's what Maka is feeling. Hey, I don't know a single thing about this world; don't blame me for not knowing what it is.

_«Forget it. You can say that if something bad would happen to me, you would know exactly where I am and how seriously injured I could be just by increasing the Resonance. So yeah, I know you're behind me and I know you're with Soul. »_ the idea of someone able to look into my very essence and know where I am makes me a bit uneasy. And yet I still did it with Maka. All these memories she lend me about her skills and the knowledge she acquired at the Academy still haven't completely processed in my mind so thinking about this 'Resonance' is strange. As if I am in a completely different planet, which in some ways, I am.

"There is nothing to say," Maka answers Kid calmly, "I don't know where Oz is from and I am not going to push his buttons to know that. And to be honest, the way we met doesn't exactly concern any of you. It's a promise I keep to be secret. An embarrassing one actually." I can effortlessly picture Maka looking away from Kid, a sheepish expression covering her lies. I hate the fact that she has to actually _lie to her friends_ to protect me.

"Then why not tell us that when we asked you? You never revealed us anything." Kid's tone seems a bit like of someone who's pouting.

"Imagine how Liz, Patty, Soul and BlackStar would react if I answer them that. Liz and BlackStar would die to know what this secret is, Patty would probably beat the answer out of me and Soul… well, he's my Weapon, my partner. He always wishes to protect me and would certainly want to know why I can't even tell _him_ this secret. You would try too to suck the answer out of me. You don't like being kept in the dark and you always want the whole truth, don't you?" Ah. So that's why she told me to shut my mouth and not even tell lies. Smart move Maka.

I hear some shuffling next to me and I glance over to see Soul shaking his head with a smirk, gazing out in the window with what looks to be a pleased expression mixed with surprise.

_He is pleased to know that Maka knows him that well but he is also surprised. _I think, observing him quietly. Mostly his red eyes. I feel really bad for him.

_«Maka, this might be pushing a bit for you but you _do_ know that Soul is ~ » _she interrupts my thoughts by finishing it.

_« ~is a child of misfortune? I know, your memories told me all about it. And no, before you ask, he never provoked any 'misfortune' to his family before. Actually, he comes from rich talented musicians and it was him who left, not them but since I respect his privacy, you're not getting your answer as to why. »_ I mentally roll my eyes. It's not been that long since our Contract, yet she still knows what I was about to say as if she has known me for years.

She's a little like Alice. Her cheery smile, her hot-tempered attitude, her feral protectiveness to those she cares about, her determination, hell, even her skills when wielding Soul in scythe form is like Alice's. I can also see Alyss in Maka when she acts so tenderly toward Crona, her desire to help others when in need and to do what is right for everybody, despite her own desires. It hurts to see the brunette within Maka in so many aspects without never really being with her, the girl who was ready to sacrifice her own life for me. It hurts but I don't want anybody to worry about it or ask questions so I keep it down and wait to deal with it later. I always for when this is all over to let everything I've been holding back to flood out of me.

Kid chuckles lightly next to her, "You know us too well, that's for sure. But still, I have to ask you; you can feel it, can't you? There's something abnormal about Oz and I know you can feel it in his soul. It looks human when you just glance at it but looking up close… it looks almost _not._ There is something ethereal about it. It's like there is a creature hidden further inside of it. I know _you_ know about it, and you keep hanging around him instead of us. You know more about him than we do. So I'll ask you only once: What's wrong with him?"

_«Well, since you're still _spying_ on us, let me comment on this by saying I am not so surprised by the question. » _Maka's voice comes in to my head, slightly annoyed by my intrusion.

Another lie, "I can sense it, don't worry you're not going crazy. I hadn't asked him though. He looks incredibly human to me and I stick up to him because of those odd wavelengths; I want to know if _he_ knows about his soul and if he does, if he's up to something." Another sigh from Kid. I got to say, Maka is good at lying. Next to me, I sense Soul and his eyes watch over me like hawk eyes. I pretend to be slightly confused and look at him with bewildered eyes, as if asking the question 'Did you knew about this?' to him. He shakes his head.

"Why go so much to the library then? What book does he look over at Maka? What do they have like subject?" I get this impression that I am assisting more to an interrogation then a simple discussion.

"He looks over the books he wants and why am I not telling you? Because it's related to that secret and try as you might, you'll get nothing out of me." It almost looks like there is a threat under her words and I shudder a little at that and I can feel Kid's frustration reach me like a wall of fire.

"Maka, it's important that you tell me all you know about him." First, it was Maka who had that low growl in her tone, now it's Kid who has that menacing aura around him.

"Things are getting creepy, or is it me?" I whisper to Soul and he hushes me into silence.

"And why should I? You wouldn't diverge a promise a dear friend of yours made you keep, would you?" comes Maka's reply from the window and my legs start to throb in ache from staying too long bent.

"No, but I would if it depends on my life as well as other's." I can feel Soul stiffen at the same time as I do and we both look at each other, a silent comprehension going about between us.

_Maka's in danger, we need to protect her,_ is the thought mutually shared. For both of us, we are used to that almost insane desire to protect a person in particular. Me for Alice and Soul for Maka.

"What do you mean?" Maka asks with seriousness, and the image of her staring intently in Kid's eyes comes into view in my mind.

"I only learned this not long ago, only a few days actually by my father's word. The Death Scythes are on edge because of that and we search every corner of the Academy to verify if there are spies over here. And since Oz has quite the strange soul and goes more than anybody else to the library, searching books in particular, I was wondering if he could have anything to do with the current situation." Suspicion flashes in a matter of a heartbeat over Soul's eyes and I frown in real confusion.

_What is Kid talking about? Spies? What's going on?_ My mind is spinning radically.

"Would you care to explain? I don't get it. What does this have to do with me?" Maka asks dubiously.

"Would you know a certain group of people lead by a person named Noah?" Kid inquires and after a short silence that equals a 'no' from Maka, he continues, "They have attacked meisters and their weapons in this region of the country, Kim, Kilik and the others to be more precise. We didn't get why until they came back. And from they have managed to decipher and what we've gathered, Ox says that all of it has to do with you, Maka."

"They have attacked people you know, to search something about you, your whereabouts and who you frequent. Those are the questions they've asked, along with other nonsense none of us get yet. We want to know if they've sent spies inside the school and there is a risk it could be Oz, with his behavior." I feel my blood freeze inside of me and my emotions must be showing on my face because Soul shoots me a pointed look.

I hear Kid take a deep sigh before going on. He must have waited a while before cornering Maka alone to tell her all this.

"For some reason Maka, Noah's target is you."

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><p><strong>Why are you all looking at me like that?! OF COURSE NOAH SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE STORY. *pouts* I'm just so <em>saddened<em> by the fact that nobody who broadcasted Soul Eater in anime version had the brilliant idea of actually FOLLOWING THE MANGA PLOT. So I'm going to add some, in my own style, which includes Pandora Heart material! Yay me! Anyways, what do you think of the way Oz sees Maka? Cute, eh? The overprotective, hilarious brother who will kill any boy that is on his little sister's way. Sad how I don't have that kind of brother. *annoyed face***

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, Aurevoir and Auf Wedersien!**


	6. Soaring into reminiscences

**And done! Since I've been getting a lack of inspiration for my other crossover, I decided to update on this one! Definitely less boring than last one, that's a promise and the 'Rabbit Curse' amv kinda got me inspired for a few scenes in this chapter (along with future ones). You should go watch it. SHOULD. doesn't mean you will. ANYWAYS, on with the story!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 6: Soaring into reminiscences<p>

Maka's PoV

How are you doing? Me? Oh you know, trying to not get assassinated.

It's not that hard to understand the notion that someone is chasing you down to killroad in the DWMA. We're trained people in the EAT class, we know that feeling and are ready for it. We have been educated to understand that people will want us dead for lots of reasons, the main one being because we killed their subordinates of Pre-Kishins, that being enough to send their minions to do the dirty job of murdering us. Still, I was not prepared to feel this pang against my chest whenever I think about Noah wanting me dead.

I don't even know this person. Noah could be a girl for all I know and it would still not ring a bell to me. Why does he want to kill me so badly? Even Lord Death doesn't know. Have I stopped hanging around Oz because of Kid's words? Oh _hell to the no!_ There is no way anybody is _ever_ going to tear me apart from him and on the contrary, I've been more protective over him than ever, not letting him off my sight for one second. Literally. Death, he is actually living with me! We don't have much room in the apartment, with Soul living in too along with Blair – even though she's a cat – but he still managed to find an unused mattress and sleep in the living room on it. Poor boy, he is Blair's new toy now.

But back to the subject, being the fact that I don't get what I could have done to get Noah chasing after me. The only thing that could spring my mind to life would be the time the attacks started happening. A little by one month and a half. The very moment where Oz became my Chain. I can't help but wonder…

_Could they be trying to actually reach Oz through me?_

But how could they know that Oz is _my_ Chain? How could they know what had transpired in the Abyss when Oz and I shared memories and secrets? Honestly, the theory of a spy in the Academy starts to make a bit more sense now to me but no way am I letting anyone even as so touch a hair of Oz's. He's already suffered enough as it has. Crona too is on the list of suspects but he looks so depressed that Lord Death decided to let him off the hook, as well as because he proved himself when going after his own mother and nearly dying by her hand. That part keeps giving me nightmares. Speaking of the devil…

_"Who are you?"_

_"I am you. And you are me." I can't see her eyes but next to that, her silhouette seems familiar to me, every curve of it, its slim and bit slender shape like the back of my pocket. It's me but at the same time not._

_"Why are you here?"_

_"Because your dreams reflect what you feel on the inside. And what you're trying to repress at the back of your mind."_

_"What does that mean?"_

_"That you have no one else in the world but yourself. Like always."_

_"I always feel so lonely…" _

_"Because you've already felt it before. Endlessly and forever."_

_"Stop dying for me, stop suffering for me, I don't deserve it. I shouldn't even exist."_

_"You don't and yet, nobody will stop to heed your pleads. That's the cold truth."_

_"FREE ME THEN! DESTROY ME!" _

A shiver runs up my spine and I shudder. These questions and cryptic answers, always asked and answered by myself, keep spinning in my mind like a hurricane when I am dreaming at night. They are hurled at me in my sleep, I don't know why though. I just know that whoever is answering the questions is not me, that voice holding some kind of… detached coldness, familiar to me because I would use that tone whenever I would go on a hunt from time to time with Soul but where I can't put my finger on this _other_ familiarity. Very contradicting.

"Maka?" I blink out of my thoughts to see Soul and Oz's pair of green and red eyes staring back at me curiously, at the entrance of the house.

"You coming or are you planning to mull over all day?" Soul asks me and I glare at him before following them toward school.

_«Are you feeling fine? You looked bothered by something. »_ Oz's voice comes into my head.

_«Don't fret yourself, Oz. I'm okay. »_ I lie back at him. Of course, I know that he doesn't believe a single word of it.

"Grigori what?" both Soul and Oz echo at Marie, staring wide eyed at her. I roll my eyes at them.

"It's called a Grigori soul, morons. That's the shape of my soul." I scoff at their puzzled expressions before sighing, wanting to slap myself at their ignorance.

Miss Marie takes it from here. "A Grigori soul is a soul that holds the shape of an angel because of the wings it holds. It's a very rare type of soul; only one in about fifty million has one, Maka is very lucky to have one, plus her Anti-Demon Wavelength in bonus. And that doesn't include her powerful Soul Perception. Our little angel here," she motions her hand to me, to whom I grin widely and proudly, "will definitely become a great Death Weapon meister, now that Soul detains Medusa's witch heart. With Maka's shape of essence and Soul's now almost magical abilities, you two can now learn how to grow wings on the scythe and learn how to fly. You now have a lot of training in front of you." We both nod, Soul lazily and me almost too eagerly for my own good, which equals mental laughter from Oz.

Oz frowns a little on the outside though, "How can Soul grow wings? If it's almost but not magic, how can he make it to do such a thing with Maka's soul?" I feel almost sad for Oz's hopeless case of lack of knowledge of the world around him.

"It's all about wavelength control." Miss Marie answers to him, "Usually, for a normal Demon Weapon, they can control a soul wavelength by mostly passing it between the meister and themselves, increasing it until creating a powerful wavelength none of them can produce which equals a powerful attack, taking the Witch Hunter for a scythe for example." Oz nods thoughtfully, registering her words before speaking his thoughts.

"So, becoming a Death Weapon means a greater wavelength control." It is more a statement than a question, "Using that ability, Soul can now simply Resonate and use Maka's shape of soul to produce a physical form, wings case in point." I'm a bit impressed by Oz's capacity to understand everything so quickly and easily.

"Exactly! My, are you the smart boy!" Miss Marie compliments him and he grins at her, a smile typical of a flirtatious boy. The worst is that it works, seeing as Marie lets a faint blush appear on her face before my damn dad barges in.

A few explanations later about Spirit's presence in here – and having to re-explain all over again Oz's presence too, being that it's training class today and that he doesn't have much to do except hang out with me for the moment, without causing the latter's wrath and forcing him to cause havoc for no reason – I stand in the exterior training area with Soul clutched into my hands, his design slightly different from before. Scrap that, _very_ different from before.

The blade is now black and midnight violet, its zig-zags stopping at the middle before descending into a simple stripe. The handle is now equally black and slightly bent over, and the carvings around Soul's single red eyes has changed for small sharp, almost bone-like figures around it, a new and smaller blade then the main one curving up at the other side of the handle, completely black and having the look of a hooked claw. Not at all an angelic scythe. I slam it down on the ground.

"Remember Kim and Jackie's demonstration? You two think of that, think about flying and the wings you would like to produce. Try it my little angel." Miss Marie encourages us and I feel fuzzy at the word 'angel' crossing my mind.

"Soul Resonance!" both Soul and I shout for emphasize and bluish light engulfs us, both of us focused on the main task of harmonizing together, on how our souls must communicate together like synchronizing heartbeats, on producing a symphony of angels and fluttering wings. Soul's strength along with my own swirls all around me, our minds singularly focused on the image of feathers, of wings beating like a soul, on the sensation of flying. Only and sadly, something unexpectedly occurs.

I feel like all the blood is abruptly pounding against my ears, rushing into them, my heartbeat so loud and frantic I almost expect everybody to hear it as sudden and throbbing ache explodes on my chest, stinging and harsh. It hammers against my chest so hard, I give in a loud gasp and my legs start buckling under me, my will only keeping me in balance.

_No, no, no! Not now, not in front of everybody! This is the worst timing for it to appear, I was sure it wouldn't appear this time! It's been a week!_ I think desperately, willing it to vanish even though I'm conscious it just doesn't listen at my every command.

Apparently, Oz feels it too as his eyes suddenly widen and he clenches his chest too, staring at me with green eyes slowly and gradually turning red. And the worst is I know my own are turning crimson too, since my connection is more powerful with Oz than Alice's is. By that, it means the Soul Resonance, not my past. I mustn't look at anybody; I have to let my hair hide my eyes. I feel like I am being burned by iron, being marked by it, branded by it, as if I am being distinct for fated. Fated to what? To be swallowed by the power of the Abyss.

"Maka? Maka!" I barely hear the faint whispers of Soul's voice, screaming at me, "Your soul wavelengths are going totally haywire! What's going – your eyes! They're red!" Crap, forgot Soul can watch me from his scythe. And that we're still Resonating. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Ignore it. I have to ignore that burning feeling, concentrate on producing wings. Right now, everybody who are observing me are probably thinking it's just me having a hard time creating wings, not that my Contract's seal is burning over my heart, not that its power is trying to flood all over me and drown me like it momentarily did to Oz once. I close my eyes.

_Wings, wings, give me angel wings, angel wings…._

_«Wings, wings, wings, give her wings to fly with, flying wings, wings… »_ Oz's voice echoes in my head, helping me out on focusing on this thought and not on the fact that my chest is throbbing agonizingly more and more…

Suddenly, I feel light and airy, my feet barely grazing the cobblestone as I elevate myself on my scythe higher and higher, the sound of flapping feathers reaching me. I let my eyes open up a little, peeking behind myself. At the very same time, I feel the seal's clock advance and it's as if my head is being spilt in two.

I scream silently, mentally and my teeth violently clamp on my tongue to repress from expressing my pain vocally, tasting metallic blood on the passage. My eyes water and they sting, ready to spill pained tears but they keep gazing though at the new born wings radiating behind me.

Black and red meddle together in an uncanny mix. The wings are mostly dark ebony black but the feathers, at each tip of them, shimmers light touches of dark crimson and stormy navy blue, glimmering like a prism at the kiss of the sunny light, as if they were not made of feathers but glass. They look like the wings of a beautiful angel. A fallen angel.

I know that if it weren't for the seal and Oz's powerful influence, those wings would not be at the present moment. Clapping hands momentarily snap me out of my thoughts and despite the pain I'm desperate to hide out of my features, I still glance through my hair at Marie, Spirit and Oz looking up at me in awe, their eyes wide and stunned. Oz is behind Marie and my – ahem – father, his eyes a bright crimson. I slightly gulp.

"Wow, that's some wings you got Maka!" Spirit jeers proudly and I promptly 'humpf!' at him and veer my gaze to Marie's and Oz's.

Marie looks as happy as Spirit, "That's a great beginning Maka! You seem to have gotten quite some difficulty back here for a moment but it looks like everything had worked quite smoothly. That's a great job!" I slightly smile at her but stay cautious at keeping my hair over my eyes. Oz sends me a thumb up from behind them.

_«Does it still hurt? »_

_«Hell to the yes! Feels only like my heart is burning thank you very much! »_ I snort at Oz mentally, gritting my teeth to stay focused on the wings fluttering behind me and not on the now constant burning sensation.

High in the sky of dusk Soul and I soar to, Spirit and Marie having left us on independent training an hour ago or so. Kim and Jackie had joined in for a bit to show me the pattern we needed to take while flying, to accustom ourselves to it and for me to remember the path to take to practice ourselves at speed flying. So far, so good. I just only dropped to the ground four times, all of them for lack of focus on the main task. Hey, blame it on Soul, he keeps bugging me.

Speaking of the devil, he harassed me non-stop over my crimson red eyes, bombarding me of questions about what happened and why I was in such pain. For the red eyes, I gave him a confused glance, telling him that I have no idea what in the holy hell he was talking about. For my seal though, I bluntly ignored the question and kept on with the flying procedure, cursing him from distracting me from our task.

_«Are you sure it keeps hurting you? »_ the question catches me off guard and I send Oz my confusion, _«It's just that it never hurt me that long before, it only lasted a few minutes. »_ I scowl at the question but I don't have time to think about it before wind along with adrenaline rushes into me as I start dropping to the ground. My blood pounds yet again into my ears and my breathing speeds up.

This time, I can't keep it at bay. It hurts too much. I feel like I'm burning alive and chomping my tongue down doesn't keep me from letting out a pained screech, Soul immediately alerted by my woe.

"Will you just tell me what's going on, Maka?!" he shouts venomously at me and my jaw clenches, feeling like my brain might pop out of my skull and my heart out of my ribcage.

_«Maka! »_ Oz's panicked voice calls into my mind and the sudden sensation of floating abruptly replaces my agony. Along with the sudden change of the whole scenery around me.

The fiery toned sky, the school standing proudly, the pillars marked with numbers for guidance while flying, the city below, everything is gone. For a while I'm just floating in the middle of a world between worlds, my ruby gaze wondering about the pure darkness, no ups, no downs, no right, and no left and only emptiness filling me up to the core. I barely hear Soul's surprised voice. Oz's voice though doesn't reach me.

"Wha…? Where are we?!"

As quickly as it came, the inky blackness of vast space around me is altered again, like a computer screen glitching, the shadow of colors starting to mirage all around me. I'm now standing somewhere else, my feet definitely touching ground. I know this place.

I'm back in Alyss' room.

_What's going on?_ Is the thought probably shared by both Soul and I. Though the question is barely loud enough to cover all the voices suddenly screaming into my head, screeches of anguish, despair, sadness, anger and horror. I let out one of my own, my fingers clawing at my hair and head, panting. An arm swings around my shoulders and I feel myself being lifted, my head lolling on Soul's shoulder and the rest of body sagging into him, him helping me walk forward despite the loud ringing and screaming in my head.

"Come on Maka. We need to find a way out of this place." Soul prompts me and I nod shakily, my nails still digging further in my head. I know I'm the only one who can hear them, otherwise Soul would have been in the same mess as I am.

**_"Alyss!"_** I hear a voice say and both Soul and I freeze on the spot, because… because…

It's my own voice.

We both veer around to see my own self staring intently into Alyss' amethyst eyes, something like a mix of worry and outrage showing on my face. And unlike last time I saw myself here, I'm not in the form of my past child. We both look exactly alike, only for a few differences, stating with the clothing. The other me is wearing a black tailcoat, the ends spilt in two and reaching mid-legs and a black lace is fastened around my neck, a white button-up shirt under it. Down I wear dark blue jeans and buckled iron-colored boots reaching my knees. And my hair a stark white. Other than that, I'm staring at my exact clone.

_"I'm done listening to you!" Alyss yells back at her, something like desperation shining in her eyes, "You keep ordering me like, like some sick puppy! I can do well on my own! I don't need or want your help!"_ the voices start ringing louder in my head and I feel Soul catch me before I fall.

The other me seems a bit hurt, but like the stubborn person I am, she keeps going, shouting in return, **_"He doesn't wants _you_! He wants all the power we detain! Jack wants to use you and you know it! He wants to use Oz!" _**I don't seem outraged because of Alyss' anger, it's more like I – _she_ is confused by the fact Alyss doesn't understand my meaning. Though the word _Jack_ wells a surge of hatred inside of me and I don't care about my odd coldness. All I know is that if it's about Jack, I know it doesn't mean good. This is obviously from before the Tragedy of Sablier.

_"Leave me alone already! Stop saying such nasty lies to me! I want to go out in world with my beloved and you won't stop me!"_

**_"You can't see what he's doing to you? He wants you isolated to better use you and you're not even talking to Alice anymore because of him. He won't hesitate to hurt her to get to you and you'll never know. Or care." _**

_"SHUT UP! LEAVE ME ALONE!" _what happens next surprises me and Soul so much I can't determine who's the most stunned of us two. The other me looks into my direction, straight into my eyes with her own intense green gaze.

**_"Don't let her leave. Jack's mad so stop her."_**almost like a possessed zombie, I slip away from Soul's grasp who follows me and slowly walk toward Alyss who in turn, advances toward the spiralling stairs, fuming, where I know she'll descend down to go and meet Alice and take over her body.

**_"Alyss, don't go."_** Every voice of the whole wide world engulf my head, every voice from the present, past and future and I can't hear anybody anymore, just reach my hand out for Alyss, just see the white light blasting from it and her veering to look at me with tearful eyes, her mouth wide open as if yelling something but I don't hear anything. I just want the voices and Alyss to stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. In the haze of all the screams, I manage to have a thought of my own.

_How can a memory see me?_

_What am _I_ doing there?_

The light is brilliant, it surrounds everything, drowns everything in itself, until I am blinded by it though not before I meet my own piercing glowing green eyes' gaze. The sound of shattering glass, of broken mirror exploding all around me, breaking the light in cracks of vibrant darkness, arms rounding my waist and pulling me away from Alyss, falling, falling, falling into the rabbit's hole…

**_«Are you afraid? »_** my lungs are constricted, I can`t scream, my throat is dry and arid like the desert. I can't scream, I don't know why I am so terrified.

**_«Good, you should be. After all, you are scared of me and I am you. »_** the light turns black, turn to dark, burning flames licking me, the whisper reverberating all over me, into my entire being. Scorching heat. I am scorching everyone with my dark flames. Through them I can see myself, a cold grin on my face, not like the me of before. I am afraid of myself.

**_«Pull me out…»_** a shadowy murmur hold by my voice, terrifyingly cryptic.

Then, as quick as it came, everything is back to normal again. Well, almost everything. For example, Soul and I are lying on top of each other on the spinning ground, groaning. Or it's me who's getting dizzy and am thinking the ground is twirling when I'm actually getting nausea. Except that, the world is back again, the school, the city, the sky that turned to night by now, everything. Only…

_"GET AWAY NOW!"_ I scream at Soul who instantly understands the message and rolls over him, both of us barely evading the bullets-like shots being thrown at us. I grimace at the grazing I received from them and look over to see the weapons, being… black feathers?

"Tsk, they just keep coming." Soul sneers and then glares at me, not really surprisingly though, "We're going to have a serious conversation after this Maka. You've got a lot of explaining to do." I grumble a 'whatever' at him and dash at his direction and a second later, my hands are clutching a scythe on airborne, us speeding across the training area, evading the sharp feathers.

"Show yourself coward!" I yell at the sky, tone slightly trembling from what I just lived and not even a second later does an obscure silhouette reveals itself at the top of one of the rocky pillars, the moon cackling behind it. The seal had stopped hurting a while before and so had the voices, to my large relief. I'll be able to better concentrate.

The silhouette approaches me and I notice something odd about it. The wings reattached to their hands, a midnight violet filled with symbols and markings. And the familiar feeling of, well just _something_ closing in on us and hovering over the person looming over me. I glare at them. Whoever it is that's over me, that person made a Contract with a Chain.

_«Oz. »_

_«You're back! I was really worried for you! Have you…? »_ I know what the hidden question under it is and fully intend to tell Oz about it. But not now. I am too troubled by what just happened.

_«Yes, but that's for later. Just get ready. »_ I answer back to him, anxiety filling the emptiness, fear and loneliness of before. Along with my fiery temper.

_«Got it. »_ the person lifts their head to gaze at me with ringed purple eyes, their gaze filled with cold murder-intent, their short black hair blowing into the wind.

"Maka Albarn, the mirror of herself. B-Rabbit, the Chain that nearly destroyed the world. It's time for you to die." Cold, cold voice. Emotionless and soul filled with black magic. The unearthly feeling of shadows casted all over the boy, the shades of a Chain.

"Accept your fate and let your souls fade into the book of Eibon."

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><p><strong>The mirror of herself? Ooohhhh, what does <em>that<em> mean? I think all of you guessed who the person attacking Maka is (for you manga people anyways)! Oh, and what do you think of the memory you've all just assisted? What in the bloody hell is going on with Maka?! Heh. Everything in its time people! Until then... *creepy grin* Guess you'll have to wait~! *evades flying tomatoes and escapes angry mob* **

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell!**


	7. Fever Rush

**Well, you've been waiting for this! Sorry for the little lateness, I've been bugging since the last day of school before winter break (*celebration dance* I can write more now! Wahooo! Bring out the liquor...! Uuuh, ahem.) but I got better so, here you go!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 7: Fever Rush<p>

Maka's PoV

I soar into the sky as fast as I can, uncaring of how high in altitude I am and how Soul is practically screaming into my ears.

"How do you know about B-Rabbit? What do you mean by 'the mirror of myself'? Answer me or die!" I holler at the black-haired boy threateningly, icy eyes boring into my fiery ones.

"Haha! Oh, this is great! You're quite the ignorant one, to not know your own hidden identity!" he chuckles mockingly at me, fueling my anger, before adding in a sneer, "Or maybe you decided you wanted everything wiped away from that host's head you take for vessel?" if he thinks that I'm going to give him the satisfaction of showing how much _'touché'_ that was for me, than he's kidding himself.

"I know who I am," I hiss at him, zooming in the air faster and faster until we're at eye-level, both of us intending to capture and kill the other, "and I know that your soul is mine."

We attack at the same time, both of us yelling. Rune-drawn feathers shot like bullets and black scythe collide in a mash of clanging and slicing, me swiping Soul at the upcoming feathers to rip them apart and the boy whirling around himself, a tornado of sharp knife-like feathers released from him and all of them directed to me. I evade them swiftly, constantly changing track until I grab my scythe's handle and swing the blade on the boy's back.

A howl of pain is heard from the boy and a swift foot kick on my jaw knocks me off him, hurling me into one of the rocky pillars with enough force to create a large crack on it. For a moment I am blinded, the air blasted out of me and I can't breathe, too dizzy to do so. Like shooting stars, other feathers are thrown at top speed toward me. I don't notice them until Soul and Oz both shout me a "Watch out!" and I duck just in time to get only two of the bullet-feathers lodged into the sleeves of my trench coat.

Alerted by the other missiles racing toward my direction, I snatch one of them on my sleeves and hurl it with precision at the black-haired boy, literally slicing in two perfect halves one of the feathers shot at me.

"Argh!" the boy cries, temporarily distracted by the weapon stricken into his chest and I take the opportunity to dislodge myself from the second feather, falling down to the ground before Soul and I grow our wing once again on the scythe, sailing right away in a straight, vertical line until the tip of my handle slams violently against the boy's chest.

He chokes against my attack as the air is being knocked out of him. I curl my fingers into a fist and punch his face with it, another choking sound coming from him as it does. I take my chance and trap him in the space between the handle and the scythe blade. As if a space ship sailing into space, I abruptly dive downward at fast pace, him dragged alone. Suddenly shifting the angle of my blade, I stop without slowing down and the boy goes off, crashing violently against the base of a pillar, rocks crumbling onto him from the force of the collision and creating a cloud of dust.

Without missing a beat, I jump off Soul, catching him in mid-fall while increasing our Resonance until my scythe has expanded to massive proportions, glowing blue hues, painting it with power. I feel Soul's emotions racing all over me as mine does the same to him, bonding together until we are perfectly synchronized and on the same wavelengths.

**_"Witch Hunter!"_** I swipe the curved blade down in a straight line into the cloud of dust, clearing it instantly with a blast of pale blue light slicing flesh. Only it wasn't the boy I attacked. Laughter echoes all around me while I try finding its origin.

"Do you really think such a futile attack will get you a place in Noah's book? If so, than you are dumber than you look!" this boy works for Noah, interesting bit of information he just lend me. I'll have to keep that in mind.

_"Eagla!" _the boy's voice reaches my ears as a shout of delight and I immediately know that he's calling for his Chain.

_«Oz! Get ready! »_ I shout mentally and I sense in my shadow preparing himself for my signal.

Something dark and sinister slithers out of my blade and it's as if fear is suddenly gripping me tightly, paralyzing me into place. My heart suddenly pounds loudly against my chest and I find myself hardly able to breathe. Dread as to what is to come swarms all over and shuts down any process of thought, the only one kept in mind being, _Get out of here, get out of here, run, run, RUN!_

I barely pick out the flutter of wings as what seem raven black ones englobe the entirety of my being, until everything is seeping with black liquid feathers, dripping of thick fluid that almost seems like black blood, gently splotching my face with darkness.

"Maka! Maka, wake up! This isn't real!" Soul's voice, the only comfort in this cold, dark world but he is nowhere to be seen, lost in the obscure waters as only an echo, a wisp of a whisper barely capturing me.

Faces appear in the ripples of the water, gruesome monsters without jaws and milky eyes staring blindly at me, some with burned faces with eyes carved out of its sockets. They become worse at each passing second, each nightmare I've always been scared of deformed to its worst. I don't scream, I _can't_ scream, I've lost my voice the second I've felt the Chain's cold touch. I try fighting it but it looks too much real, too terrifying to be anything but horrid reality.

**_«Are you afraid? »_** again, my voice but not. This Chain, even though I'm hardly conscious of it, is using my memories against me. I feel like the water all around me is drowning me in its icy liquid, freezing me.

**_«I am your worst fear. I am you. »_** I shake my head fiercely and clamp my hands on my ears in a futile attempt to shut my own voice out of my head, in vain.

In the waters, I suddenly feel a pair of hands grab my hair and pull me out of the black, icy blood, mismatched pair of amethyst and emerald eyes staring back at me with a vicious grin on the face holding the exact same features I do. Platinum hair tickles my face as my clone leans closer to me, cold eyes boring into mine as she murmurs into my mind, **_«You let your friends nearly die for you and act as if nothing happened or worse, act like a bitch to them. They saved your worthless butt by nearly sacrificing their lives and you can't even return the favor, much less thank them properly. You only think about your little person. »_** I grit my teeth to repress a cry of anguish.

"Shut up…" I hiss lowly at her and she retorts by slamming my head roughly against the cold water, shutting me out efficiently.

**_«You brag about getting stronger to be able to protect them but when the time comes for that, you use them as a shield to protect yourself and your little ego. You let them die without a thank you. I'm cruel therefore, you're cruel to them. »_** I start debating myself against her grip but all her body is weighing on me, pushing me deeper into the waters.

**_«You're pathetic. You're worthless. You're useless without a weapon. And most of all, you're scared. »_** when I start kicking at her, she plunges my face inside the blood, blinding me from her but I know she is grinning wickedly at me, still murmuring words to my ear. **_«You're so scared of getting hurt that you let others die for you. Soul and Crona for example. Than you let your precious Oz take over you just because you were afraid of Asura. A whiny, weak, scared girl, that's what you are. And that will be the death of you. »_**

"Shut up!" I scream in the bloody water, bellowing, "You don't anything about me!" I know that it's the opposite but I don't care. I don't want to hear those words again, don't want to hear myself say them again.

**_«On the contrary, I know absolutely everything about you. Even the secrets you don't want to admit yourself. You're so terrified of ourselves that you decided to ignore who you really are and wipe away every memory of your past! »_** again, the mention of a past that I can't deny anymore. A past that I don't remember and can't recall, a past that doesn't belong to the one I know in my head since my childhood. One that isn't supposed to exist.

**_«You can't pull yourself together and that will kill everybody you hold dear to. You always spread massacre in your wake, even when you have good intentions. »_** images start forming in my head, my self standing in the middle of a pile of corpse, a strange detached expression on my face. The corpse are so distorted and twisted that I can't even recognize who is who anymore. The only color standing out is red, over and over again, coating everything in its bloody colours.

**_«I don't want to be alone again, stop dying for me… »_** this is my own thought, coming out of nowhere, tears spilling out of my eyes in joining the black water drowning me completely.

My voice again, my breathe again the curve of neck, the distorted feeling of need to reach out, find the missing light inside of me, the missing soul, **_«Find it so last… you found yourself so last… be afraid of yourself…»_** What did I find? What does 'myself' mean?

**_«Wake up, wake up now… pull you out… pull you out… pull me out… »_** my fingers interlaced with my own, the meaning of the words unable to reach my mind and soul, their fingertips barely reaching me.

Another murmur, another whisper, another dark seal, **_«Over and over, she calls… over and over, over you call out for me… you whisper your fears to me… »_** I can barely think now, distress and terror wiping out everything off my mind, my voice being the only sound in the dreadful silence of the water's rumour.

**_«Over and over, over, they fall…fall because of you…it's your fault… »_** I can't bear these words but I'm not conscious of screaming and fighting myself, my fingernails scraping at her and my knees bruising her, yet she doesn't move an inch away from me, if not pressing closer to me.

**_«We seek you… we found you so last… »_** the questions don't reach me, I can't question, can't doubt anything. Yet my mouth still opens up to speak dark promises.

**_«Pull me out… pull me out… pull me out… »_** I repeat the words over and over again, like the recital of a mantra, not registering the dark light in my eyes. I slowly lift my hands, as if watching a play in slow motions, my fingers gripping my other self's neck, the ghost of a grin looming on my lips.

I feel like I'm losing my mind.

**_«LUMOOSS! »_**

Three voices. One yelling my real name, comforting me and filling me with reassuring warmth, one that always pulls me back from the brink of insanity to clarity. The second one making me feel nostalgic, making me want to reach out and catch the person's hand and never let go again. The third one is a girl's, demanding and challenging, inciting me to do the same, to follow her lead and stand up, wherever I am. The third one is faint, only just above the quietest of whispers yet it resonates in my head like the loudest of screams. Just hearing it makes me want to cry out and let sudden grief flood out of me in the form of tears.

I reach out for myself and not just my fears. I reach out for the light.

**_"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"_** I scream at the top of my lungs, rage replacing my bone-chilling fear and like a reflex, I lift my arms high up, my palms opened outward. I slam them together and as if on command, what seems like an explosion responds to me, the shattering noise of pillars crumbling all around me reaching my ears and bringing me back to reality. The scene takes my breath away.

Instead of falling like gravity is supposed to do, the destroyed pillars swirl all around like on orbit, like drawn into the tornado I consist at the present moment. What looks like translucent glass swirls along, the sun's last rays tainting them a myriad of colours. Red eyes are staring back at me, Soul squeezing my shoulders tightly and holding onto me. The sound of chains unraveling by my simple order of unleashing themselves is heard. All this landscape makes me think about the Apocalypse.

I look at where Noah's minion is and locate him in mid-air, blood dripping from his head down his chin, a gash spurting more red liquid at his left shoulder. A cold grin spread on my face, one that I can't hold back after what he just made me suffer.

"Soul." I call at him and not a second later I am clutching him in my palms, his warming presence reassuring me. I feel Oz nudge me worriedly, mentally.

_«Please tell me you're not going insane. »_ he says, his worry unhidden from his voce, tainting it strongly.

_«I'm…I'm going to get better. »_ I was about to say that I was okay and fine to Oz but I figured that lying wouldn't solve the problem so I went for honesty. _«Just stay on alert and… thanks for bringing me back. » _

_«Well I wasn't just going to sit back and watch my friend go crazy. »_ a nervous chuckle resonates in my head and I inwardly smile a little at that before bringing my attention back to the ongoing fight.

I am still caught with Soul in the massive tornado that somehow created itself, diverting every missile plume shoved toward me from the boy. A black shadow jagged in the ends is hovering just above him, continuously changing shape for its image to be clearly distinguished, instead a blurred one appearing. Dark red liquid oozes out from here and there, flowing in the air before turning into red mist and vanishing in the blood-red sky. A sadistic grin is covering the boy's face.

"Did you have fun with Eagla?" he asks tauntingly, inciting me to stay on my ground instead of just barging in out there and ripping his throat out. "My Chain does have its ways to get into people's mind and create illusions of their fears. It shows how much you're just a weak girl instead of the essence Noah wants." At the ending of his sentence, an outraged grimace mares his features, one that reveals jealousy.

"You shouldn't even exist. Why does it have to be you, a wretched host that can't even remember itself… I want to be in his collection too! _I want to be Noah's!_" He reverts back suddenly, bending over his back at an abnormal angle and it's as if his vest splits up in two; what looks like a large jaw opening up. A brilliant light glows inside of it and shadows from the Chain's silhouette leaks into the growing ball of light. It becomes bigger and bigger.

"NOAAHH!" what appears to be euphoria englobes his face.

I step over Soul and give a kick on the ground, sending me skyward and out of the tornado that quickly dissipates itself the second I leave it, torn debris falling downward and hitting earth in loud crashes. The boy snorts at me, "It's no use trying to escape it! This is intended for you and some of your fears are linking it to you. It will follow you to the end of the world, no matter what so you can already give up!" I send death vibes at him using my eyes.

Soul's image appears on the blade, sending me a mix of the same death vibes I've been shooting along with curiosity and confusion. "What now Maka? We'll just get tired if we try escaping it."

"Doesn't it look obvious? It's our only left now so why not take it?" understanding crosses his features and I jump off him, catching the scythe in my fall and tumbling straight to the ball of light, the blade held high above my head. Of course, it's not our only option left.

Our Resonance increases at such high level of state I feel like I might explode, an explosion of emotions crashing into me and I scream, **_"Demon Hunter!"_** the longer, sharper and brighter blade exploding in prism shades of light clashes with the ball of light, at the same time I also yell out, **_"B-Rabbit! Come on out now!"_** more power running over me as I let out a loud cry.

I feel the shadow of Oz's Chain form materializing over me, looming like a dark angel of death ascending Earth, his real soul unraveling itself and probably being perceived by every meister of the world. His chains shoot right into the Chain, piercing through its hazy shape, more red exuding out until a whole bloody cloud is spilling itself on the boy, the hawsers' spiked ends grazing cuts on him and wrapping themselves around the boy's wrists, elbow, knees and ankles. Indistinct voices rise from the ball of light and let out a screech of rage, tearing through the ball in half, an explosion reverberating from behind me in my ears stridently.

I land on a criss-cross of chains having bestowed themselves against the remaining pillars, unmoving and perfectly balanced on them while my eyes sweep over the boy imprisoned by those same chains, observing him hatefully, my Demon Hunter still glowing brilliantly in the twilight.

Suddenly, I let go of Soul and jump off the chains, my two friends distinct voice ringing in my head and ears, both crying out my name in surprise. I don't pay attention to them and fall toward the boy who looks at me with mocking eyes, a sneer on his lips.

"So this is how you're going to kill me?" he snorts at me, uncaring of his impending doom, "Letting out how much inhuman you are, releasing your anger? That's gotta be a joke." I feel something crazy rise in me.

"SHUT UP! _YOU'RE_ THE ONE WHO DISRUPTS EVERYTHING!" blades unconsciously appeared on my wrists and I bring them down to slice him off cleanly when the sound of rapture momentarily distracts me and I turn my head just in time to see a foot crash into my face.

A second later I see stars, going in a merry-go-round tour, my vision spinning wildly around until I can't even tell anymore where up and down are. That is, until my head brutally collides with a pillar, feeling something crack up like an egg on my skull.

"Oi, Lumos! Haven't you happen to see Oz by any chance? He sounded real pissed when he called your name!" hhumm, that voice sounds familiar… Oh yeah! That's…! _What?!_

I look up from where I am my arms and legs spread around me. There, her silhouette the only thing I can see with the diming sun behind is her. The girl's voice that brought me back to sanity, the exact same one I just heard, deep violet eyes staring down me with power and authority, long silky chocolate hair flowing behind her and fluttering in the air like wisps of wind. Her foot is stomping on my upper body with her gloved hands set on her hips determinedly. I stare at her blankly for a few seconds, my mind spinning.

_«Tell me I'm not hallucinating Oz. »_

_«Nope, I'm as shocked as you are! »_

_«I can tell from your voice that _you_ are obviously not complaining. »_ I add a twinge of tease in my mental voice and I feel him shuffle awkwardly, what I suspect being a blush covering his face.

_«Well I don't so shut it. »_ I snicker at that.

Then we yell the same, familiar name at the same time, in perfect tandem but the meaning of the name a whole new definition.

_"Alice?!" _

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><p><strong>Wait, wait... <em>what?<em> What is out little Alice doing here, eh? And what a great way to enter the future in such grandiose style, Alice always has to barge in with either a punch, a drop-kick or a butthead! XD That's our Alice! Are you guys happy about it? Tell me all about it on the comments or reviews, they're appreciated and it helps improving the beginning of this crossover! Oh and one more thing: Eagla in Irish actually means Fear sooo...!**

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell!**


	8. Words of answers

**I'm super late for saying this but oh well: Merry Christmas! Greatly sorry for my lateness (again) and this time, I have no excuse except procrastination *evades the books thrown* Eeeh! Hey, I'll have you told that I just saw the movie Interstellar! So what? IT JUST BLOWN MY MIND AWAY, LITERALLY! Soooo... what? It means that right now, my mind and imagination is on _nuclear explosion_ so yeah, I'm not going to have writer's block for a looooonnnggg while. XD**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 8: Words of answers<p>

Oz's PoV

So Cheshire brought her in here. That explains a little at least, though not completely. I still wonder why Alyss would want to bring her twin to us, when we're trying to reach _her_ timeline. By doing that, Alice gets stuck in the future with me too so I don't quite get Alyss' objectives concerning her sister and us. She barged in, from what I saw with bewildered eyes, through a crack – inky darkness radiating from inside – in thin air, tumbling out like a miracle. I have been so surprised that I got momentarily distracted from my main objective, being between saving Maka from going utterly mad from rage or retaining the boy working from Noah to escape.

That boy, whoever he is, managed to evade my grasp. I don't know how, seeing as I roped him like a lasso in my chains but the only thing we saw afterwards Alice's unexpected arrival was him being sucked into what was obviously… a shadow. Probably something his Chain can do, traveling through shadows like Eques can but I still don't get how he managed to release himself from his bounds.

We come out of apartment's hallway and into Maka's house, Alice sauntering in like she owned the world, Maka slightly fuming, her footsteps stomping loudly against the tapestry and slightly wobbly from injuries and me waltzing in as if in the weirdest of dreams which I am technically in. Soul, laying on a sofa with his hands behind his back immediately sits bolt upright and looks at us wearily, his eyes locked into mine in a silent question.

I offer him a sheepish smile, to which he doesn't reply the same way and simply glares at me. "Sit down; there is lot of explaining to do."

"You tell me." He snorts sharply though he still flops in a sitting position and lets me sit next to him while Maka and Alice take place in the couch parallel to ours.

My eyes slightly divert themselves from Soul's gaze to wander in Alice's direction, watching her in silent curiosity for a few seconds as she observes like a new-born child the odd house she stands in along with the odd objects lying here and there, taking for example what I used to call the 'magic box' being actually something called 'television'.

I look at Soul and ask, "So, where do you want us to start?"

"Hey Lumos! Do you still have more beef?!"

"There are some leftovers of beef ragout in the pot!"

"They better taste like Gil's cooking!"

Within the girls' shouting match, I stare intently at Soul, waiting to see his reaction to the story Maka and I, along with occasionally Alice, just recounted to him. We didn't tell absolutely, totally _everything._ I did omit though, some information I couldn't bring myself to speak of, for personal and safety reasons. The fact that I'm B-Rabbit, for example. Saying that to anyone but Maka or Alice at the present time could be compared to signing my death sentence, even worse in Lord Death's territory. I just managed to say that we made a contract with a creature for its powers that could help me in my escape from the Abyss and that we're researching ways to be able to crack a portal or something similar in our mad dash for the past.

Other than that, I pretty much told Soul my current situation, how I was chasing Glen before I got sucked into the Abyss once again and how Maka's arrival pretty much saved me from that place, along with Alyss' spontaneous insanity and her death wish for me. She might have appeared gentle when Maka came in but her mind is slowly but surely edging away from lucidity and more toward madness, which my new Contractor managed to evade miraculously, just seeing a hint of what Alyss usually does when having our memories to meddle.

I simply spoke of what we though was our mission before we discovered the truth about Jack and myself. I told Soul about the search for Alice's memories, which she took care of recalling for us to him – and be careful as to not mention too much about Jack – told him about the seals holding Glen's soul but did not say about the lie Jack fed us with, when we thought it was his body that had been sacrificed, I went with the truth for that one, saying Oswald's body held his essence. I told him about the Chains and where they come from, told him we made a contract with one but we feigned being confused when Soul spoke about Maka getting taken over by myself.

Soul learned by our mouth about the organization of Pandora, what they study and their objective along with who the Baskerville are and their own goal. What Break's real aim is (though I've been careful to not say too much about his meeting with Alyss, since I respect his privacy – and he doesn't) and how Leo is the new incarnation of Glen Baskerville. I've told him about Isla Yura, Elliot's Illegal Contract with Humpty Dumpty and how the Chain managed to find Leo. I told Soul everything he needed to know, minus some things from here and there, enough to satisfy his curiosity for now.

So I am presently waiting to see if he'll either try to murder us, scream over the roofs that we're mad, faint or simply go ask for help. Both way, the worst case scenarios are playing in my head and I am slightly holding my breath for his reaction.

Soul, after a long while of silence, finishes by taking a long intake of breath and takes the speaker. "Let me guess, you're gonna ask me to keep quiet about everything that was just told or you'll kill me and hide my body in a river with all kinds of movie special effects.

"What's a movie?" Alice and I ask in tandem, the former spooning something in her mouth behind me. Maka gives in a groan and sighs, her head in her hands and a small smile uplifting her lips at Soul's gawking expression.

"Hold up a moment." Soul gives in an incredulous chuckle before looking at us with wide eyes, "You just gave me a story, the worst being a true one, that could make it to the _New York Times_'s best-sellers and you don't even know what a _movie_ is?" we give him a puzzled look and once again, I get this feeling of being left out of something very important for the century.

"No." we answer yet again at the same time and I don't need to look up to know that Alice is smiling at our shared thoughts.

Soul looks at Maka with an expression of betrayal, "You three are about to try and save the world and you don't take the time to show them the beauties of this world for their last days on earth? How could you?!" the tiny smile that had formed on Maka's face twitches, as if she's undecided on whether to turn into a grin or a scowl.

"Thank you but as you said it, we're currently trying to save the world and I don't think Oz would want to know what kind of movie _you_ watch." Yep, definitely a scowl now, an annoyed one at that. Soul's face turns deeply flustered and I can tell it's something embarrassing Maka just told him. Still…

"Hey now!" I call out to them back at me, "I know a bit about what the internet is! I want to know what a movie is too!" I feel Alice lean in over my shoulder and peek out to see her eyes wide and curious, as mine must currently be.

"I wanna know to! Where her manservant goes, her master will go too, being me!" she wraps her arms around my shoulders and she places her chin above my head, a possessive gesture I don't mind at all. Though I just hope that whatever she's eating doesn't fall on my hair.

"And it was supposed to be a serious conversation…" Maka sighs sadly and a light chuckle leaves my lips as she says it, two parts pleased and one part equally saddened by the turning of this conversation.

After a moment, under the pressure of all our eyes blazing on Maka like spotlights, she finally gives in and manages an almost quiet, "Fine, maybe tomorrow I can show you."

"SUCCESS!" we all yell in one voice and I can clearly see my pig-tailed friend flinch at the noise.

"More talking, less screaming please." She grumbles while rubbing her temples.

"Anyways," Alice says in a muffled voice between two spoonful of whatever she's munching on, "What is this miracle I'm eating at the moment?" I can hear slurping on it and I try not to laugh at the hilarious sound of it. Oh, I never thought it was going to be this good to see her again!

"It's called Nutella." Maka simply answers, before in a more suspicious voice, she asks, "How much did you eat anyways?"

Alice, probably oblivious to the danger, retorts, "It was already half-empty when I found it." I blink innocently at Maka in way that says, 'I don't what the hell is Nutella.' And her emerald glare slowly sweeps to Soul, who is equally whistling innocently. Her jaw clenches and she glares daggers at both of us.

"I just bought it yesterday." She mutters darkly and I can sense an oncoming storm from her, "Whoever eat what was supposed to be mine, it doesn't matter; you're both dead for the count." I mentally groan at this.

"So, this is the biggest library in the world?" looking at the pictures my eyes are sweeping on from the book in my hands, it doesn't look that majestic but I haven't been there yet so I'm not one to judge it. Maka though, looks like she's in heaven itself while Alice appears as confused as ever. Soul, on the other hand, seems to understand Maka a bit and his eyes are lit up in anticipation.

"Yes!" she claps her hands excitedly and seems ready to explode, "We absolutely need to go in there, this is a once in a lifetime chance we have to take! It's a miracle I found this book!" her grin widens until I wonder if her face hurts from smiling too much. Though I'm starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together and I'm starting to understand her reasons other than simply wanting to take pictures and admiring the books held in there.

"They might hold more information about the Abyss than in here, maybe even Pandora files from our timeline." I say thoughtfully, droning on, "But surely they won't allow simple teenagers like us to go in there, and that's not even counting the price of the trip to the library. Along with the fact that people will certainly be guarding the books we're searching, since the information the books hold is dangerous enough, probably kept safe by descendants from the Barma Dukedom."

"Well, you're Oz Vessalius, aren't you?" Soul asks me, boring his dried blood eyes in my verdant ones, probing me for answer. "Why don't you flash your name to the guards and they do whatever techy mojo on your face to recognize you and they let you in?" I arc a brow at his idea, already seeing faults in it and not even a second later a book is whacked on Soul's skull, the latter letting a small whine as his hands shots up to rub his throbbing head. Both Alice and I shiver at Maka simply rearranging her book to its original place as if nothing happened.

"It's not that simple Soul!" she hisses in a low voice when the librarian glares daggers in our direction, probably having the ruckus over here, "Oz and Alice are from an entirely different timeline! How do you think the people surveying the library will react if he simply waltzes in and tells them that?" well at least one person noticed the mistakes in that plan. Soul nods in understanding and sighs.

"Well, other than that, do any of you have any of you have a better idea? Because from you guys told me, we don't really have much time and need to think fast." We fall prey to our thoughts a second later, trying to cling to any idea that might pop here and there, yet nothing comes into my head. I'm pretty bloody sure that the security has largely improved since our century and that it would be a whole lot harder to break in a library now, if I looked well at how the cities and world changed since.

Alice suddenly frowns at our thoughtful expressions, before saying, "But aren't you students from the DWMA? You're supposed to have access to information like that if you want to find and hunt those monsters you chase. Why would they refuse you if you tell where you're from?" I stare at her blankly for a while, Soul and Maka doing the same before I finally crack a smile at her and ruffle her hair playfully.

"You're really smart Alice, you know that?" I compliment her and she looks at me with surprise flickering deep in her violet eyes, a blush covering her proud face. She never got much praises from us since most of the time she was extremely confused about our terms when me, Gil and the others talked, her amnesia making our words foreign to her. But now, it seems like in bonus of being the most honest person I have ever met, she is truly creative concerning her ideas and speaks like a president of some company, confident and convincing.

Soul lets a smirk crawl on his face and says, "True. If we show our student I.D. to the people there, they might understand our concerns. It should be easy for us to convince them if we tell them that the safety of the world is at stake."

Maka is still frowning though, a blush of embarrassment slowly creeping up her cheeks, "Well… I guess I could…. Ask my dad to pay our trip since we can't tell Lord Death…" that coming from her clearly means stomping on her pride and ego and Soul notices it immediately.

"Come on Maka! You just say a few words and you'll have him at your feet! You know that creep would do anything to get to your good side and after you won't ever have to talk to him." Maka clearly looks contrite and is having a large dilemma in her mind.

Alice and I both tilt our heads in a questioning manner, me asking, "I know this might be getting into your personal space Maka but… what exactly did your dad do?" I look at her shyly and her gaze seems to blaze with fire when she speaks again.

"He's a player, if you know what that means. And he was with Mama before she left him." The words process through my brain, trying to get their meanings and suddenly a disgusted scowl covers my face.

"He was with you mother and he was a player, a player of… oh the git!" I shake my head, not at all understanding the mind of people who act like her dad does and probably never will.

"Oz, what does player mean?" Alice asks me and I find her too innocent for these matters, though her stubborn expression tells otherwise and clearly explains that she'll harass me until the end of the world – which is most likely soon – if just to get an answer to her question.

Instead, Soul surprisingly answers her question. "You call Oz your manservant, yes?" when she nods confidently in response, he drones on, "Well, I'll say an example of what a player is. Your manservant leaves you, to see another girl, to whom he leaves after a week or so too, and goes again see another girl and so on." Judging by Maka's indignant expression at having answered so bluntly at the question and Alice's horrified expression, as if the answer she was given could as well be considered as her worst nightmare, she understood the meaning of the word, given that her hand immediately latches on my own as if a leash put on me from escaping her grasp.

"Now, back to subject please and off the one where you speak of the father I hate's romantic life or the nonexistence of it," Maka hisses through gritted teeth, her jaw clenched in irritation, "let's please discuss the next matter of the present situation being what kind of book we would need to find. We clearly need something specific, astrophysics for example." Again I feel extremely stupid at being ignorant of the term she just used.

"I beg your pardon?" I blurt embarrassingly at Maka, my face slightly flushing in horror at not knowing what in heaven she is speaking of.

_«Seriously Oz? Not even astrophysics? Weren't you instituted by private teachers which probably mean that you're more advanced than normal students? »_ my blush deepens at her teasing scowl.

_«I was the heir of a Dukedom, Maka. I was more into economics and such, the subjects of a future Dukedom than whatever rubbish you're sputtering about. Is it a 21st century thing? »_ the feeling of idiocy grows in me and sensing my discomfort Alice arcs a brow at me in a silent question, when she would have normally simply blurted out the question aloud as if speaking of the weather. It probably means that she doesn't trust Maka and Soul enough yet to say what she haves in mind. A sigh mentally sent from Maka.

"Scientists, Oz." Maka replies aloud, a tiny teasing smile quirking the corners of her lips upward, "Physicians that study the stars and such." Memories suddenly surge in my mind, simple whispers from dark corners when the astro-thingy wasn't as open as now.

"Oh! These people that try understanding what lies beyond us, right? Space and everything related to it. With those giant telescopes." Alice blinks at me with a confused look while Soul like Maka is obviously biting the inside of his mouth to repress a laugh. Then Maka leans in over the round table toward me and pats my shoulder with a large grin, as if pitying my ignorance and wanting to comfort me. I pout at her childishly. What? She's being unfair right now!

"Back to subject, shall we?" I grumble crossly and both Soul and Maka snort at that.

"Anyways," Maka continues, that snarky smirk still not wiped off her face, "From where we left off before I discovered something very interesting about Oz," from me comes a 'Shut it!' and 'Shhh!' from the librarian, "I was saying that we would need specific books and I mentioned astrophysics, my reasoning being that scientists do mention interesting theories concerning certain objects in the universe that could, as hypotheses, suck us up and bring us to entirely different places in the universe or an entire parallel world," both Alice and I unconsciously straighten ourselves in our chairs at the statement and we suddenly pay more attention to Maka's words, "or even be used to time travel so it would be nice knowing those theories and comparing them to the ones Abyss-related, see if there are any connections."

Smart words from her and my expression must be saying it since she smiles up at me, her entire face glowing as she finishes talking. I nod, thoughtful, before adding, "We should also search some Pandora files, maybe, since we want to time travel back in time, they have mentions of our future selves, some lead about what we're about to do and what happened when Alice and I disappeared from the map."

"The chains!" Alice suddenly squeals loudly and I make her duck just in time to evade the hardcover book wheezing past us from the furious librarian, landing past where Maka's head had been to land with not so much grace and valor as intended on some shelves, crashing and causing more books to spill and serve as ammo to Alice who immediately snatches the first book Soul lends to her to throw it with such vigor the librarian sails away with the book, her head hurled into the space between shelves and rest in them motionless. "Ha! That's for trying to attack me with a book!" a look of pride comes over both Alice and Maka's features and Soul and I sigh in resignation at them.

Coming back to her senses quickly, Alice turns to look at me with glowing eyes and shrieks to me a, "Look! This is the biggest library in the world! With all the information it can hold, it must certainly hold some form of material concerning the chains holding the world together, their origins and if we find their origin, what they consist of, we can maybe find what could mend them!" the grins on Maka and Soul's faces is nothing compared to my own, me standing up in front of Alice and grabbing her hands tightly in my own, squeezing them with mine.

"That's it! You're officially a genius!" I jeer at her gleefully.

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><p><strong>Aaawww, Oz you're currently being adorable with Alice, along with both your ignorance of the 21st century! I should do a one-shot about that, huummm... Oh, the biggest library in the world, if you don't know, is the British Library, which stores up to 13 950 000 books (hooooolllllyyyyy heeeellllll, that's <em>paradise<em> for bookworms like me!) and has like 3 000 000 sound recordings, which I imagine also means music. CAN YOU IMAGINE SUCH A PLACE? This immediately goes to my bucket list. Anyways, I forgot to proofread this (actually don't have time) so if I haveany mistakes, just tell me in the review box! Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR!**

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell!**


	9. Count the shadows

**I must say that this chapter is a little boring to me. It's more a filler than anything else, but I think you'll like how it ends and what episode I've been quoting (those who know what I'm talking about will get what I mean, I hope ^^') Also, due to massive study sessions for upcoming exams, I might not have time to post next week. Sorry for that, but I wanted at least to warn you guys. That's all I have to say!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 9: Count the shadows<p>

Maka's PoV

Dark grey clouds roll over us like films, swaying to the wild wind hollering to us and blowing my ash blond hair away, stray strands flying to my face and occasionally blinding me. I still don't get how Alice managed to convince me to let my pig-tails down but she did, probably through either a sad puppy face or some creepy aura that may or may not surround her if we don't listen to her, meaning upcoming danger. In my opinion, I prefer the former.

Though I don't pay attention to any of those options, as I marvel like a mad fangirl at the modern architecture of the huge library in front of me, a statue of a bent over man displayed few feet to my left side. Right next to the library, acting like a background, is a large castle-like building, adding to my ravenous squeals.

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!" I shriek like a madwoman, my eyes practically sparkling, "We're actually here; we're right in front of the biggest library of the world! This is, this is…. _Oh my god!"_ from the corner of my eye, I see Soul with a look saying 'let me get out of here, there's a crazy girl next to me' Oz and Alice wearing similar expressions. Though there's tiny tug at the corner of Oz's lip, him probably more fascinated than he lets on.

Finally, we didn't very much needed to display that we're from the DWMA to anybody to pass, as the books from this library are for everybody who would need them, the source being the website of the library. Sure, some are old and fragile enough have specials identities to hold them and are preserved in peculiar rooms but I don't think those are the ones we need and some were probably digitalized for readers, the reason why I brought my tablette with me. And for the cost of the trip to London and how I managed to convinced that creepy guy called my dad to lend me the money… well, my ride was damaged enough. Let's not go into details please.

"And it's about to rain. _Again._" Soul moans, motioning for his already soaked leather jacket, "Can we just go in already?" I don't make myself be repeated and make a mad dash straight to the entrance of the British Library, just as the first few droplets of water start to splotch on my face.

_«My, are you the excited one today. »_ Oz chuckles in my head, cheerful voice contrasting against Soul's morose one, as if he was going to his own funeral.

I inwardly smirk at his comment and reply. _«Weeelll, plus the fact that we might find something about the Chains, I guess I could also mention that they probably detain _every single _copy of Holy Knight. » _not even two seconds later, he's pacing toward the reading rooms as fast as I am, dragging two whining Soul and Alice with him.

"Let's roll." He declares in a dead-serious tone with an intense look that would most than likely disturb anybody who finds themselves under that glare.

Soul groans before asking in a depressed voice, "Hey, you scanned the area right?" I nod at him, understanding the question.

"Of course," I snort lightly, "we wouldn't want another Chain attack right?" at that a shiver seems to pass right through him and I gaze at him with curios eyes.

"Did I say something?" I ask Soul and he shakes his head.

"No, but you did scare the crap out of me when you destroyed all those pillars." I frown a bit more at that while Oz leaves us two to discuss matters.

"What do you mean?" I inquire, perplexed by his statement, "it was the Chain's reaction at me not getting drown in its fear, not the other way around." Now it's his turn to gaze at me with confused eyes.

"Didn't you sense it?" when I shake my head in negative, Soul scowls, "Well, your wavelengths went totally overdrive. I actually thought for a moment that you were going to burn everything around you, me included." My face falls and I stare at him with distressed eyes.

"That was… me?" Of course it was me, what I said earlier about not feeling anything in my soul was a total lie. I did feel something very singular inside of me, more profound and powerful than anything I've ever sensed before but being used to think of myself as useless outside being a meister, I didn't want to believe it and reported the blame on the Chain of fear, Eagla. But now… I don't it's a good sign.

I glance at Soul again before adding, more bitterly, "Let's deal with this later, okay? We have other priorities right now." Soul gives in a resigned sigh but otherwise doesn't protest, instead trailing after me as I pace up to Oz's level, Alice asking him questions about what happened to the old London, a slightly panicked look at not knowing himself marring his features. I giggle at them. They're almost like cute, naïve children at the present moment.

"Just how many books are there?" Soul whines as I pick up another of before mentioned object to add at the growing pile, Oz and Alice already engrossed in a large encyclopedia by one of the long reading boxes in the large cathedral-like circular room. Not much light descends from the windows circling all around the room, twilight settling in and the rain making patterns on them and extinguishing the sunny rays of the sun, only letting clouds of grey pass through. Infinity of shelves replaces the walls, so high to reach people had to install staircases and such on different levels. They're all stacked to the brim with every kind of books you can imagine, going from musty and yellow-paged to recently published and new. Heaven on earth for me.

"Exactly 13 950 000 in the library and we're just seeing a small portion of them." I quip in matter-of-factly tone, finding another esoteric book dating from two centuries back, about parallel universe. Quite ingenious to meddle religious movements and science.

Soul looks ready to throw himself off a bridge and hisses a quiet, "How the hell are gonna make it to read all we need in one day, let alone two?! We're down to four days now before the time limit!" I grimace at the notion of time moving on without us. Why can't it just stop to let have all the time in the world to read, seriously?

"Don't remind me." I grumble under my breath. I separate the dangerously tilting pile of books in two sections and point one to Soul. "Come on, I think we have enough books to last us a while. Pick this pile up." He follows suit and we drag ourselves to Alice and Oz's box, their eyes hazy and clouded with concentration, files, volumes and manuscripts splayed messily before them along with notebooks scribbled with messy notes of their discovery. It's almost eerie to see those two so focused on the main task, very unlike their normally cheery moods.

"So," I tell Soul, picking up the first book my hand lads and taking out a sketchpad and a pen out of my satchel. "let's get down to business." I open up to the first page of the tome, entitled _Requiem for the interstellar,_ my eyes already skimming across the words quickly.

I don't know how much passes but am conscious of my hand moving to scribble notes on my pad and the hands picking books after books, quickly passing for a survey to see if it isn't only man drinking way too much who wrote them or genius of the Einstein levels. Us being focused on writing and reading, we earn ourselves a few curious glances from passersby walking past us, probably surprised to see teens no older than fifteen or sixteen concerted in a mountain of physics and magic along with laws and order. I barely notice them and don't care of who looks at us. Hardly a few whispers pass between us.

After some unknown time, Oz let's his head loll backwards and stretches himself, yawning a, "This stuff is brilliant. I've never even knew the theory of alternate universe related to our paradoxes. Maybe if we fused them together…" his gaze becomes wistful and I smile a bit sadly at him.

"I don't think that's possible. Paradoxes aren't supposed to even happen, they just create cracks in the 'walls' of the universe and fusing the original universe with the paradox's one would be like trying to stick two magnets of the same poles together. Impossible."

"But black holes could relate them." He shots back with an arced brow.

"_Could._" I retort, emphasizing on the word, "We've never even got as far as the moon for human spatial travel, trying to get to the nearest black holes would take us hundreds, no, _thousands _of years to even reach and we'd be dead long before that." Oz still looks nostalgic and snaps his fingers, his eyes slowly drawn to me.

"Do you think the Abyss could take us to other galaxies? Maybe the Abyss itself is a weird sort of wormhole or something and could shortcut us in other places in the universe." The mere thought of it makes me dreamy.

"It would be nice to see new galaxies with our own eyes…" I murmur distantly, sitting back against my chair and letting the possibility engulf me.

"What does this Milky Way looks like anyway?" Alice asks Oz with brows knotted in sheer confusion. "They talk about it in some books but I didn't find any picture!" Oz slightly diverts his gaze from Alice for a second to shoot me a pointed look. It's true that there probably weren't any or very few images of our galaxy at his century. I take the last book I read and tap Alice on her shoulder, bringing her attention at the large image of a beautiful swirl of stars and nebulas clustered in a gigantic spiral in space.

"Wow, it's very pretty…" Alice whispers and even Oz leans in to take a peek, their eyes growing more and more distant, like in a dream. I grin at them.

"And that's only our galaxy; there are millions and billions out there." I jibe casually but am conscious of just having grabbed their attention by the way their heads wipes around at my direction to look at me with wide, innocent, puppy eyes. Oh god, they're too cute for their own good, I almost want to scratch them behind the ears just like I would to Blair.

"I demand more pictures Lumos!" Alice inquires in an arduous tone, huffing proudly when I pass her another book mostly filled with images of space and the likes, inwardly smirking. I told her to call me Maka but she's just stubborn like that.

"Maka." Soul calls for me, drawing my attention from Alice toward my weapon, him holding a file out for me.

"Does the name Barma ring a bell to any of you?" He says with a smirk and my mouth almost drops to the floor. I could just kiss him right now.

"You're. Totally. Completely. _Awesome._" My grin widens as I give him a bone-crushing hug, Soul sputtering awkwardly for me to stop trying to murder him by strangle

"Oi, no snogging in front of me." I immediately release Soul and glare at us who's barely hiding the humorous smirk on his lips while Alice looks at us with a puzzled look. I can also see the excitement in his eyes about having found a Pandora file, cert old and musty from the passing of time but still there and readable.

A few moments later, Oz is seated between Alice and me, both our eyes skimming across the page and our pens scratching against paper.

"The Duke knew about the chains, that was obvious enough but I didn't think he knew about them _for years._" Oz breathes; reading the date the file was written and sorted. "This dates back from a little over four years before we even met him. Why didn't he do anything about it?"

"I don't think that douchebag as I want to call him is stupid enough to sink the world into the Abyss, Oz." I calmly retort, papers in my hands while he reads the rest.

"Except it would have been a good weapon to threaten the government with. If he wants more power or information on some stuff, he could this at them and he would have everyone at his mercy." I nod absent-mindedly, too focused on the pages I'm reading. Something is starting to form in my head, something utterly _crazy_ but yet, the seed is already planted in my mind, the idea slowly growing.

Alice frowns a little at the pages we handed her. "Why would the Core of the Abyss want the laws of its universe replace ours? Apparently, the Duke found some really old stuff proving that the chains didn't always hold our world together." Oz squints on his chair to take a look at her papers.

"Really? Does it tell what did? Does the Duke mention the name of the manuscripts? Maybe this library has it here." He yawns, more loudly this time since night is starting to settle here along with our jetlag. My own eyes occasionally droop without me being aware of it until Soul snaps his fingers before them, bringing me back to reality.

"I think I got the answer to your first question." Soul beats me to the punch and hands one paper to the blond, the latter snatching and reading it. "Every scientist that studies astronomy and physics will mostly agree to say for their count that the universe is influenced by stuff like gravity, time and space and unknown objects like dark matter and energy."

"And somehow, there's just our little planet here that's held by chains. Why?" Oz mutters, more to himself than a response to Soul. His eyes widen for a second, Alice not able to see with his back turned to her but enough for my eyes to notice it.

_«What? Do you have an idea about it? »_ I have an intense staring contest with Oz and apparently I win since his gaze veers from my own to Alice's direction, something contemplative in his look.

_«Maybe… Maybe it's because of Lacie. » _I tilt my head to one side. How curious.

_«Would you mind developing? »_ my right eye slightly twitches at the tiny twinge inside my skull, minuscule migraine.

_«I mean, maybe it created the chains because of her. She was its first friend, nobody ever interacted with it before and I saw the whole thing happen before my eyes. Maybe it just wanted to reach out for Lacie's world. »_ there's something nostalgic in the emotions flowing in me from him, I guess he misses those times and is remembering them. I feel like I should to but I don't feel anything about it but emptiness. I can't really understand his situation and relation with Lacie. Though the idea sticks and is logically insane enough to stand.

_«It could be true but something so massive… but of course, it's like doubting the king of hell. Obviously it can do just about anything. Maybe even change the laws of the universe just for her sake… »_ something abruptly twists in me and my face slightly scrunches up at the thought. It feels wrong to change a whole parallel universe just for someone you care about. It feels horribly _sick _to just think about it. Just look where it led. Bile mounts in my throat and I suddenly want to go outside and take a breath and smell the ozone of the thunderstorm of earlier and the fragrance of the rain, anything away from this currently suffocating room.

I slowly get up and look at Soul, "I'll be back in a few. I just need to take a breath." I add the last sentence when I see him gaze at me with a sharp look. He knows me too well; clearly he sees that I'm not feeling right.

With that I waltz away, answering the same thing when Oz asks me if something's not right. Obviously, the boys would have none of it, since later on I sense Alice's soul quickly join me up while she darts past me and makes a wave at me with her hands.

"Oz told me I can take a break! How dares he tells me what to do, I'm the one who should do that!" Alice grumps indignantly, her hands on her hips while a pout covers her face, soon replaced by something thoughtful after she takes a glance at me. "I think they just told me that because you are going outside alone and they want me to save you again." I raise an inquisitive brow at her, a smile tugging my mouth.

"Looks like we're on the same page here." I laugh a little to her, twirling a curled lock of her between my fingers, more frizzled by the rain than the usual straight strands.

"Sooo," Alice drawls the word while slightly bumping my shoulder with hers, "you don't feel alright? You look like you're going to throw up." She says that so nonchalantly, like it doesn't bother her that _yes,_ I feel like vomiting.

"Nope, you're right. I don't feel so great but I think going outside will make me feel better." Alice blinks at me.

"Like when you go outside and then you feel like everything bad inside of you is washed away?" she asks me and it's my turn to blink at her. "I know that feeling. I like going outside, it makes me feel more pure." I fold my hands neatly behind my back, a light smile on my lips.

"Yeah, that kind of feeling." I answer back.

A moment of silence later, she suddenly demands, "Why did you leave Lumos? Do you remember us?" I know what she means and the questions still haven't stopped in my head about the subject.

"Sorry Alice, I don't remember you or our sister. It was a surprise to even see myself with you two actually." I admit to her bitterly, before adding with a crawling smirk, "Though I still think Nox is a better name." she glares at me.

"Not true! I came in first with Oz's name so it's my right for everybody to call him that!" she declares while jabbing a finger at my face, to which I giggle a bit.

"Everybody has the right of expression." I fire back at her with a challenging glare of my own, "So I too, have the right to call him Nox."

"Well, everybody calls him Oz." she shoots back at me.

"If it weren't for you, everybody would call him Nox." I retort quickly.

"Oz is better and it's simple to remember!"

"No! Nox is and it fits his soul perfectly!"

"Oz!"

"Nox!"

"Oz!"

"Nox!"

_"Ssshhhhhh!"_ someone I don't even look at hushes us venomously in the hallway and we pout silently the whole way toward the counter at the entrance of the library. Only then do I notice that most of the building is eerily silent, literally not a single soul living here beside us. I frown a bit at that, my brain quickly processing the thought.

"Hey Alice." I call at her and she looks at me curiously, "Did you see who that person that hushed us earlier was?" for a moment she seems to think about before answering a simple "No. Just a shadow." To me. She appears to register that thought and quickly starts sniffing the air, a habit of hers to detect the smell of Chains and frowns a bit.

"There something weird about this place, a really odd smell but there's no Chain right now." She tells me and I grimace, clutching my chest. Damn nausea.

"I don't sense any soul beside ours in the library though even at night there would still be people reading here." We look at each other and we seemingly share a common thought before dashing for the counter where I saw a woman sat there when I first entered the place. I don't see anybody and when I take a peek at behind the counter, I only see a vacant chair gently spinning by itself, as if someone had left it not long ago.

"Where did everybody go? Why did they go?" I ask at nobody in particular but Alice appears to have taken the asking upon herself.

"They were maybe spellbound?" she answers while looking directly in my eyes, something oddly fierce in them. "Oz told me how the children at that orphanage were compelled to do what Yura asked them. With Humpty Dumpy, they still thought their parents were alive. Maybe there was a Chain or something else that forced everybody out." She looks so confident about her idea and it sticks so I nod at her in approval, to what she grins and leads me to find whatever's causing this, her hand gripping mine tightly. Something warm grows inside of me, looking at her like she radiates light itself and instead of the nausea, I suddenly feel like crying for no reason. I want to hold on to her as if her life depended on it but I don't know why. A tumult of emotion rages inside of me and my breath quivers.

Then I notice something odd on the floor and stop, Alice obliged to so when I do.

"That book wasn't there a second before." I say in an oddly serene voice, picking said object up with my free hand. _The Nightmare Queen_ was its title and my fingers trace over the graceful onyx carvings of it along the beautiful black wings at each side of the book, meeting at the bound of it. That wasn't left on the floor by accident, there was a reason for it, it's a message intended for both me and Alice.

_"ALICEEEE!" _that voice, it's my own again. What's up with these weird memories that make no sense whatsoever?

"Did you ~" I start asking but Alice answers before I do.

"I did." She responds, her hand that isn't gripping mine in a death grip clenching her head, her eyes squinting in what could be pain, like the migraine I'm currently having. Something trying to rise but somehow there's a force drowning it.

"Hum," Alice starts, her eyes staring at something beyond the book and when I follow her gaze before meeting something of the upmost peculiarity. "I don't remember seeing three shadows for one little book." Very understandable. Three, long shadows stretch from the book and cover the entirety of the walls in the hallway we were currently running through, meeting at the shadow on the corner of one of the walls where it turns in one direction. I immediately let go of the book, which clatters like a murderous scream on the polished floor before veering around to see Alice disposing of the same problem, two shadows related to the ones of the book. Shit.

"Don't move a single centimeter, Alice. You have two shadows." I growl at her and Alice immediately goes as stiff as a statue while I cautiously take a page off the book lying motionless on the floor, the cracking sound of paper being torn away reaching my ears. That done, I throw it inside the shadows and with horror; I see it get burned down to ashes until nothing is left of it.

"This isn't Doctor Who, damnit!" I cry at thin air but someone surprisingly answers me.

"I'll have them telling you that it was your first idea." says a snorting voice from the writhing shadows, freezing me into place. That's not possible; I only heard it in my dreams and apparently lost memories. Alice takes no time to fire back a heated reply to her.

"Show yourself coward and face the foe that'll destroy you." Within all this storm of frantic thoughts, I can't help but wonder just how many books the brunette read in her past to acquire such developed words. The question gets cut when someone forms out of the shadows and steps out of them, allowing shades of colours to be painted on her and define her.

"But you're Lumos!" Alice gawks at her just as I do, her head constantly looking between my stark-white face my other one, both of us wide-eyed at my very clone looking down at me with those same exact emerald eyes. I open my mouth to ask something but my own self seems to already what I was going to ask.

"No, I don't work with Noah but Gopher is here alright, though he hasn't taken out his Chain yet." The word 'yet' enters my mind and I shudder at the meanings and possibilities of it.

"Though I am here to kill both of you so stay still while my shadows burn you up." Oh yeah, like _that_ will happen. Uncaring of the shadows anymore, I snatch Alice's wrist just as the light of the corridor in front of us starts to flicker between shining rays and cold darkness and start running, yelling over my shoulder, "Just who the hell are you?!"

"A memory. I'm not the only one." is the reply I receive, unemotional and unnatural. We pick up a faster pace and try running toward the path we've taken earlier, going in to warn Soul and Oz but the lights are already starting to flicker, advancing quickly in our direction. My eyes frantically search for another corridor.

"This way!" Alice shouts at me and I don't make myself be repeated twice, our feet already taking long strides at the corridor on our right, paintings on the walls and books displayed in glass cabinets, along with a few gramophone disks. An uncanny giggle resonates all over the hallway and I have a hard time believing it's my own laughter. Though nobody talked, we both know that fear is thrumming through us.

"Count the shadows, little rabbits, count the shadows…"

* * *

><p><strong>Oooo...kay? So Maka just met her clone... real weird. XD So, any British reading this? Have I described well enough one of the reading rooms of the library? Because I've just got pictures from Google to use sooo... am I alright? *shy voice* Do I pass? Anyways, what do you think that means, our little scythe meister meeting her memory version? I, for my part will keep it all a secret, hehe! Makes it more fun! (yes, I'm quite the sadistic person XP) Thank you all for reading or reviewing, it warms my heart! :DD<strong>

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell!**


	10. Run along, little Alices

**I'm having a really bad month. I did an enormous for what my mother will murder me for, literally and figuratively, and I am still not done with the tests. They just keep on coming like bullets and I actually have two tomorrow. By Friday's major secondary 4 exams, I'll be brain dead and that's not even counting _after_, the worst being that it's MATH. AGAIN. So right now I'm writing this up, having the most fun I can get before my untimely death, since I messed up so bad I just want a whole to swallow me and keep me under with the dead dinosaurs, that better than confronting my mom. XD If I don't post next week... it was nice knowing ya *manages fake tear***

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 10: Run along, little Alices<p>

Oz's PoV

I stare at the vacant chairs next to me, feeling unusually lonely. There was a light Alice and Maka seemed to fill with their bare presence and when Alice has gone after Maka like I asked, it's as if they left cold spots at their places. Soul smirks at the face I must be making.

"Already missing them?" he asks with a chuckle and I'm suddenly sitting straighter and huffing with a pout.

"What are you saying?" I snort, "Of course I can live a few minutes without them!" at that Soul bursts out laughing.

"Good god, you're hilarious when you're all sulking." I shoot him a glare.

"I'm not sulking! As if you weren't all moody a few seconds ago!" I fire back at him, who manages to calm his manly giggles and grin playfully at me.

"Well, I was definitely better at hiding it than you were. There were mushrooms growing on your head." my hand straightaway flies at my hair to push any form of plant or bacteria off my head, messing it more than it already is on the way.

"Mushrooms are supposed to be healthy for you." I retort in a matter-of-factly tone.

Soul raises a brow, "Because you don't eat them but let them climb your hair?" I playfully shove him off his chair while another burst of laughter bubbles out of his mouth.

"Shaddup! I eat what I want!" I whine while he shoves me back and I nearly crash into the floor by it, face first if it wasn't for before-mentioned chair saving me by griping it with all the force I can muster. Or so I thought. Sadly, while I grasp it, the wooden object topples over and suddenly, my face is biting dust as I face palm against the rough ground, the chair, in bonus, tumbling over my head and bruising my skull as it smashes onto it. I fell with such grace and valor, Soul actually stood and started applauding me with awe stricken into his face.

Or so I thought – again.

Instead, he stares at me with pitiful eyes, a hidden mirth practically begging to etch itself on his face while I groan and start rubbing my throbbing head, feeling a lump forming at the top of my head where the chair hit me.

"Show-off." I growl before pushing the base of the chair under Soul into toppling on itself, succeeding into tumbling on the floor with its passenger. For a moment, I stare with a grand smile Soul latch onto it as the chair falls, looking like some ridiculous cowboy riding a chair for a horse, the image so comical I can't help the small snicker escaping my lips before the albino boy collapses on the floor with a cry and suddenly he's throwing a book, Maka style, at me and I do the same, both of us abruptly yelling obscenities at each other.

"Bitch!"

"Jerk!"

"Go to hell!"

"Been there, got out, you should visit sometime."

"You should instead keep one girl to yourself instead of two."

"I didn't do anything, brat! You should try and flirt, for starters!"

"Womanizer!"

"Dick!"

"Asshole!"

"The name fits both of us, don't you think?

"Oh, shut up!"

_«Oz…»_ I immediately stop myself at the playful reply I was going to give Soul and whip my head around; trying to locate Maka at the entrance of the room but there is nobody there besides looming shadows and books.

"Maka?" I mumble more to myself than to anybody in particular and Soul immediately sobers up, his expression turning from confused to serious and slightly impatient. I echo her name in my head, the word spinning and twirling aimlessly in my mind and beyond its borders, searching for its owner.

"Is she saying anything to you?" he asks cautiously, eyeing me with a look close to worry mixed with something more edgy though I can't tell what it is for the moment since I am too distracted in tracing Maka's voice.

"No. She just called me out of nowhere and suddenly stopped." Soul is already up on his feet and – ignoring the mess and heap of books spread all around us by our fight, he walks out of the reading room in long quick strides, me trailing after him.

He asks, looking back and forth between us, "Where to?" I know he's etching to just turn into a weapon and fight whatever's out there, if there's anything out there and somehow, I feel this desire pulsing through me too. I _want_ to kick some monster's butt, _want_ to put into practice my skills as to wielding a scythe, _want _to feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins like fire.

I look at Soul and cheerfully announce, "Turn into a scythe." The bewildered look on his face is priceless and I nod reassuringly at him when his eyes ask the unspoken question lingering between us. _'Can you handle me?'_

He shrugs, though I know he's tense by the way his body stiffens. "If you say so." In a flash of the palest blue, light dances around me as Soul's figure takes the shape and form of his scythe, the radiance coming to rest on my hand as sudden warmth rises inside of me, like being under the cozy blankets of your bed in a cold night.

"I thought your Soul Wavelengths would be fierier than that." I remark as I resume strolling into the halls, occasionally filled with paintings or displays of books encased in glass cabinets.

"Pfff, as if. If you want fire, than you should go to Maka. She's one heck of a blast for a meister." I chuckle at that.

"Now that wouldn't surprise me." I comment as my mind wanders off beyond its barriers, scanning the halls all around me. Something is wrong about it, though I can't tell what. It's a bit everywhere. Furthermore, there is a fine line connected to me, a line I can only feel with my mind, leading straight to Maka, and probably Alice too. I nod to myself and start following the trail. Unaware that the lights behind me are starting to flicker between white glow and black darkness.

Music starts to gently play in the halls, coming from seemingly nowhere and everywhere at the same time. A sign that the melody actually originates from my mind, being sent from Maka toward me. I frown at that. The closer I get, the louder it becomes.

_«Holy water cannot help you now…» _the tone is low and there is a hint of mystery in it, as if enticing me to follow the voice to its whereabouts. I'm very aware that this could be a trap but both the trail of that filament relating me to Maka and Alice and the song are pointing to the same place.

I pass other rooms quietly, sometimes reading ones or storage, the modern architecture impressing me at times with all its abstract shapes and colors though at other moments, I would notice archives more like my timeline's libraries, all elegance and grace and complex carvings painted in gold, auburn and wooden material. Quite the meddling.

_«A thousand armies couldn't keep me out…»_ I turn left to a corner and meet the counter at the entrance of one part of the library. There is nobody, this place is deserted.

_«See I have to burn, your kingdom down…»_ the song goes on without me, repeating itself over and over again.

"Hey, not wanting to offense you or anything, but are you sure of where you're going?" Soul asks me and I feel the tiniest pang of hurt at knowing that he doesn't trust me as much as I thought yet.

I nod confidently at his image reflected on the scythe blade. "I'm sure. I already relied to this link once before to find Alice." I let a scowl cover my face for a second, the memory of what the result was of trailing after that link coming into mind.

_«… and no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out…»_ the music wafting to my ears brings me back to my sense and I pick up from where I stopped, this time nearly running across the maze of halls, reading and storage rooms and occasionally taking a peek in them to see if there was any physical hint of where my two friends are.

_«I'm gonna raise the stakes… »_ my eyes drift to another corner and I notice something writhing on the ground, halting me on my tracks and taking slow, steady and silent steps toward the squirming shadow of whatever is lying on the polished floor.

"Oz, duck right now!" I don't let myself be repeated twice and listen to Soul's command, diving on the ground as scorching heat flares in the air above me before receding back to its original shape.

I finally take note that there is nothing but the shadow on the ground, nothing related to it and suddenly it shots right up at me, what seems like black fire burning within and childish giggles echoing inside of it.

_«I'm gonna smoke you out. »_

Maka's PoV

_«Seven devils all around you, seven devils in your house…»_

"Oh, will you shut up already?!" both Alice and I snarl at thin air, though said air is writhing with hot-white black fire that is currently trying to make a grab at us. We run down one corridor and uncanny giggles follows us along fiery shadows, whispering gibberish but enough to set my skin crawling.

_«See I was dead when I woke up this morning, »_

_«, and I'll be dead before the day is done…»_

"I'm never listening to that song after this episode." I groan as we run past one door and enter an enormous reading room, shelves after shelves elevating themselves to the highest points they could reach and soft-toned golden light showering upon us in rays. They start flickering, giving the whole room a more sinister aspect. We slam the door shut and I snatch a book before lodging it between the two handles of the door. I know this won't do much good but it's better than nothing, right?

"Right along with you." Alice agrees as we search anything that could hide us _and _lead us to Oz and Soul to warn them against the present danger. I can already feel the former moving and my worry is constantly growing, forcing me to suppress the fear and want to simply sink into hysteria and panic. I've tried earlier to reach out for him but only static answered, along with this annoying music ringing in my head. Obviously my duplicate wants to make things as creepy as possible.

I suddenly slam my palms against a table lighten with a small desk lamp, frustration joining all this mix of emotion whirling wildly in me. "Damnit! There's not a thing that could fight these things?!" I take a deep breath and try to labor my breathing, without success.

I suddenly see Alice stiffen beside me and she orders a few hasty words "Don't move." I do as told, already conscious of the problem at hand, being the possibility of more than one shadow wriggling next to mine. A thought suddenly occurs to me and I gulp. I only did this once before and without being conscious of it for the matter – it was Kid who recounted me the facts of what I did back there – and I'm not sure I can repeat the process.

"I have an idea to get off these things." I suddenly tell Alice, shutting my eyes and focusing on my soul, hard-working and earnest, as Stein had put it so lightly. "Just get ready to wield me." I know that behind my eyelids, Alice must be looking more confused than ever at my words.

My mind is at the present more concentrated than ever on my essence, trying to identify what kind of Demon Weapon I would be, trying to figure out my own personality and what shape and blade or gun it would take. If I have a hot-temper, would I turn into a shotgun? If I always reply with sharp and snappy tones, would I turn into a dagger? I can't be a sword, Soul got hurt by one, by my fault and I still haven't forgiven myself for it. Without even noticing, light starts to engulf me in its embrace, breaking off the hinges of the shadows and turning them into dust and ashes while I keep on glowing, brighter and brighter…

Out of the blue, warm hands are grasping me through white gloves and I open my eyes. I did it! The world suddenly seems larger, as though I am looking through the eyes of a child and that they are being held in the hands of someone. Alice. I look down at myself and see myself glowing pale peach, in the middle of inky black nothingness. I actually transformed.

"A spear?" Alice asks dubiously, admiring with a smile and curious eyes my new form. "It looks cool." I feel heat rise to my cheeks at the compliment, even though I can't even see myself at the current moment.

"We should go hide and wait the shadows to pass." I propose to her and she seems only half-listening, already walking to the blocked door we've arrived in moments ago. Only a shadow sweeps past us to post itself before it, blocking our only exit. I peer over at the mass of shelves all around us; seeking any window we could break and burst out of the library. I can hear rain rattling fiercely against the walls; can listen to thunder rolling in the clouds outside but not a single ray of any light whatsoever enters to the room. The door is the only way out.

"There isn't any escape now." says a new voice from behind us and Alice wipes around, her hands clutching me tightly and taking a fighting stance at the owner of the voice. I can feel her heart thrum with hidden fear. I don't know how she did it but somehow the brunette managed to recognize the _real_ me from the false one, the memory.

She shakes her head and probes with a tired smile. "Why are you the only ones who can't see it?"

"Because we're still alive and as long as we live, we'll find a way out of this mess?" Alice fires back for me, her eyes glaring right at my clone. I inwardly smile at her determination. I can sense her soul wavelengths; feel the raging fire blazing within them along with, under that ardent current, a more gentle stream, refreshing and invigorating, like cool water drifting in the form of windswept vapor over the fire toward me.

"Alice, Alice dear," the other me laughs gently, coldly toward us. "You never found a way out of this. Not since you died here." I feel both Alice and myself freeze.

_"What?!"_ we both screech out the question as if our lives depended on it and at the moment, I can't help but think that maybe it does.

"What kind of crap are you talking about?" I keep my voice from trembling, feeling my inner self do so as my eyes widen. I don't understand why but all of this is grating on my nerves. Something strident is ringing in my head and I try reaching for it but it always escapes my grasp, my fingers grazing it and that odd feeling slipping away.

The other me looks at my weapon form, dull eyes gazing intensely at it, her mouth slightly twitching in what could be a sneer and her eyes narrowing, another thing appearing like a pained look washing over face for the fraction of a second. Her voice is quieter when she speaks. "You truly don't remember, don't you?"

Frustrated to no end by all these riddles, I shout, "Be more damn specific! I'm tired of all these verses already! Just tell me what the hell is going on and why you're doing this!" that mask covers up her face again and I let my anger boil up to the hottest degrees.

She laughs an empty laugh, "Because last time you blew up the whole damn place! Both you and Alice." she says that so casually, as though speaking about the weather, "Because I'm just, all simply, so, so, _so_ tired of you all screwing everything up. And here you are," she gestures with her hands at us, limply doing so, "once again searching and you don't even remember yourself." Shadows roll and coil all around her and us, like the spectators of a show, sizzling with heat my new form is for the moment impermeable to.

"You think forgetting everything will make it all better?" she questions before laughing, this time the sound filled with resignation and something close to delirious sadness. "That's just kidding yourself. That's why," she takes a step closer toward us and blades form at her wrists, her eyes growing wider and madder, "I think it's best if the world ends already and you all die to stop all this madness." She dives in for us at the same time Alice does the same, two blades clashing together. I don't notice how the song that was in my head stopped.

"You know," my clone starts with a crazed smile, swinging her left blade toward Alice's waist in an attempt to slice through her abdomen and the right blade toward her neck, trying to decapitate her, "All of these books may be real, all of them may truly exist along with this library but believe me when I'm saying that the second you entered this place, you entered a whole new dimension." Alice twists her hands in a grip that makes the handle of my weapon form block both attacks. I receive a migraine from it but stay focused.

"First of all, say who? Second of all, how? Third of all…" I am interrupted by Alice, who finishes this sentence for me.

"Prove it." at that, my doppelgänger grins at us.

Oz's PoV

"Do you know how come these shadows can move?" I inquire at Soul, trying to think of anything that might trigger the new hostile life form lashing out at us. One of them swipe at my feet and I jump over it while slicing using Soul the other one darting at my head though there isn't much use to that, since it nearly yanks him off my hands after instantly reforming itself.

"You know that blue-haired kid who always thinks about himself?" when I nod in affirmative, running off from the whipping shadows, he continues, "Well, he has a similar power, he can control shadows too."

"What you're saying then is that someone is controlling them?" I question, perplexed. A shadow intends to pierce me through the chest but I bent over my back to evade it. The first thought that comes into my mind about anybody who would want us dead is that boy we fought just a day or so ago. But, I can't smell his Chain here so necessarily he isn't either; he's pretty much powerless – minus the bullet feathers – without his Chain.

"Exactly. Are you near them?" he answers at the same time asking his question.

I nod. "Yes, just around that corner, there is a door and behind it, Alice and Maka." I motion at the hall next us, the end of it finishing with two large double-doors writhing with moving shadows. It is obviously guarding something or someone, judging by the way the string in my mind is tugging forcibly at me to reach for that room.

"Questions is; how do we get in without getting ripped to shreds?" that, ladies and gentleman, is the one million dollars question.

Except, we don't need to answer it since the answer itself is delivered through those doors. They are suddenly torn open by a violent gust of wind and millions of colors dashing out of it, as if the every painting of the world has decided to meddle together and take life. But what is the most outstanding in all this is…

"Are those books flying?" Soul asks, gawking as I am at said objects sailing in the air. An endlessness of them, of every size and length, are batting the air with their pages for wings and are swirling around us in a massive tornado of sheer nonsense, paper constantly cutting through my cheeks and legs and practically blinding me with their innumerous words. Inside that room, voices are heard.

"Says who?" I immediately recognize that voice as Maka's but it sounds oddly playful, teasing even. "Says you and me and Alice since we're all part of the big plot the man or woman upstairs decided to bestow upon us. Second of all, it's your power that did this Maka, you created me the first time you came here and a wham! whole new dimension created. With me as its ringmaster, the last memory of myself to live through. And finally, I think this proves it perfectly." There is definitely something eerie about the Maka I'm currently seeing. And why is she talking about herself as if it is someone else and not her?

I run with Soul clasped tightly in my hands and look at where Maka stands, wrists blades shaped off, her back to me as she faces a very angry Alice, her hands gripping an odd spear. The handle is a metallic grey and there is something weird about the ending of it though I can't tell what it is from afar. The pointed blade is double-edged and inside is what looks like onyx encased in a diamond shape, the metal of the weapon equally enclosed inside the onyx in the same shape. The image of someone flashes on it but I'm too behind to state who it is. Though Soul lets out a light gasp.

"Nice weapon you are Maka." He greets with the twinge of a smirk and I frown, utterly confused. Who is he talking to exactly?

"Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?" everything clears when the voice coming out of the spear is the exact same as Maka's, her image, though blurry, reforming on the blade, emerald eyes narrowing on what could only be her replica.

Said girl cranes her neck to look at us, the flicker of a smile ghosting over her lips and eyes looking more like dull green liquid then actual emeralds. "Oh, I was wondering when you would come rescue the princesses." She teases and Alice flares up straightaway along with Maka.

"We're not princesses!" they yell as one and I can't help the small mischievous grin flashing on my mouth before it fades away at the whole landscape before me.

"So," I start with a sad mope, "I guess you want us dead then?" it's not a question, it's a confirmation.

"You got it all right." Her grin widens from that melancholic one to another that is completely inflamed. "You mind joining the party?"

The doors behind me slam shut. I take that as a no.

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><p><strong>Maka, a spear? That, for me is reaaaallllll cool! And that's not even all of her yet, hehe! The song used in this chapter is 'Seven Devils' sang by Florence and the Machine. One of her songs is actually in the playlist I created for when I write, 'Cosmic Love' I love her and her group, she's amazing! Songs get me inspired and is well recommended if you're bored and uninspired before your keyboard. And looks like crap is about to hit the fan in this fic so get ready for serious problems and Alice awesomeness, meh! Oh, Alice was put in plural on purpose on the chapter of this title, BTW. Actually, do you ladies and gentlemen have any theory about what the hell is going on? Confused? That's just a start! Thanks for reading, commenting, favoring and following, it all warms my heart and makes me very happy in these dark times!<strong>

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell! (probably permanently now T_T Wish me luck!)**


	11. Strike a deal with the Devil

**Still alive and kicking! I'll explain one day but now I need to hurry up, I have no time left!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 11: Strike a deal with the Devil<p>

Alice's PoV

You know what could be weirder than seeing rotten meat with lots of disgusting white gooey stuff moving all over it? Seeing your lost-past-friend's-evil-memory-twin trying to kill you in a library that is not a library but simply another dimension apparently created by said girl. Weird times call for weird measure, I guess.

Such as the ceiling of the room leaving to let the sky be revealed, not a drip of water falling on us since there is no rain above us. Instead, the clouds and blues are swapped with what looks like a makeshift blanket hovering over us and made of different pieces hastily sewn together. They are rather diverse and pretty, some pieces with floral designs and others, other stripped black and red, blue and green, every color this world detains and some have stars painted over them while others have intricate and symmetrical sketches over them. The shelves have decided apparently to dominate the heavens, as they keep ascending higher in the weird new sky, so high I can hardly see the ends of them at all, the birds replaced by flying books. The room has no limits now, extending to infinity with millions of bookcases engulfing it, some of them are illuminated with odd lights.

As I said, weird times call for weird measures.

Though I find this dimension beautiful in my mind, I can hardly focus on its appearance right now, as Lumos' clone has decided to take my wonder at her advantage and to lunge at me. I barely evade her blades this time, Lumos voice bringing me back to reality (and it's resonating inside my head! Wow!) in time to dodge them at the same time Oz swipes at the clone's back. His attack is blocked by one of her blades and he receives a knee kick right at his face. He reverses his grip on the handle of the new scythe in his hands and plunges the end of it right at the replica's abdomen, throwing off past me and against a bookcase.

"How did you meet her?" he asks me and I pout a little at him. _I'm_ the one who should be asking the questions, not Oz! But still, it's better than asking 'Are you alright?' which he already knows I am.

"She started controlling these weird shadows and attacked us." I explain to him while I avoid the shot of one enormous shadow that dove right me, separating me from Oz. "She…" my voice slightly quivers a bit before I regain my previous confidence, underlined with slight anxiety, "she said I died here once and that she is a memory of Lumos trying to stop us from going further." I can tell without looking that Oz is as surprised as I am, even if I don't want to show it.

"Apparently, this isn't the first time I came here with you guys." Lumos adds grimly and I don't know how but I can actually _feel_ her nervousness, sense her worry and frustration. Is that what Demon Weapons do? …Odd. "Alice died and somehow, I left an imprint here, so strong it created this dimension. Her. And I _still don't remember._" Oh, I perfectly understand her frustration, how you can feel the emotion with it, the nostalgia and still manage to let that damn memory slip past your hand and fall back in the deepest depths of your mind. It's really annoying.

However our conversation is interrupted by the slam of a pair of shadows nearly crushing me, if it hadn't been for my agility and speed. The room suddenly starts to zoom in, without us moving an inch and I have to elude the rushing bookshelves that are hurtling toward me at the speed of sound, so fast I can only just jump out of the way from being slammed into the wall and entrance and sharp shadows behind me. It's as if time itself is moving without me and I have to evade its untimely disasters from striking me right in the guts.

"Do you like this place?" the clone quips, which I finish by naming Maka to make a difference between the two girls. "I put all my efforts into making it." I can hear the mocking tone in her voice and can hardly believe that this is the exact same person I am looking at, the same trench coat, those same green eyes, that same hair. "And this time, it's not like Cheshire's realm, it can perfectly continue to develop itself without me. So you can stay trapped here and never get out without my permission."

"I have a hard time believing this is still your clone, Maka. You two look like nothing alike." On that I will agree with Red Eyes. The two have no similarity whatsoever besides their physical appearance.

"Of course we aren't the same. I remember and she doesn't. That changes a lot of stuff in our personality, even more if the imprint is of someone insane out of grief." She retorts with a snort and stands up before vanishing in one of the shadows, her voice echoing in all our heads in a purr. "I doubt though that will help you escape this place."

I run along with the moving unlimited room, bookshelves constantly grazing me as I try attaining Maka-slash-doppelgänger and I hear Oz do the same behind me. "The let's do a deal!" I shout at the small form further away from me that is Maka, standing over one of the massive bookcases with shadows twisting around her like snakes. From across of me I hear a "What?!" from both boys along with Lumos and smirk at succeeding in stunning them with my cleverness.

For a moment, only static rings in all our minds before she decides to reply to me, saying, "That's different from the other versions. Interesting. What do you want?" My smirk spreads into a triumphal grin and I slice through a shadow cleanly before moving on, her figure précising itself as I move in closer.

"Escape, obviously! And with a memory." The moment I speak, the flying books and the shelves halt their movements, along with the winding shadows. I stop myself from running, my whole body screaming in protest along with my lungs. I still glare straight into Maka's direction, determined to get what I want.

I keep one talking even if I can hardly breathe anymore. "You say we blew up the whole library dimension when you told us everything, once before." That fact keeps nudging something inside my head, that irritating tingling sensation I can't catch but is always at hand's grasp, "Seeing what will happen, than give us a piece of the truth and let us out. In exchange, toy with us and give us a challenge. Any you can find. Those are my terms."

"I have to say, you'd be a good entrepreneur if you lived in this timeline and was actually interested in that field." I snort at Lumos' comment and she laughs in my head.

"If you're searching a businessman, go find Oz." I grumble while rolling my eyes.

"He'd be more a cute conman than anything else." The image surges in my mind and I burst out laughing before I can stop myself, the picture looking so dorkish and ridiculous I can't help it. Lumos laughs with me and I can feel Oz and Red Eye's confused gaze on me.

I immediately sober up when Maka steps in front of me, the slight twinge of a smirk equal to mine presenting itself on her lips. "Play with your food, huh? That was always impolite in my opinion but if you say so then I will allow myself some fun." She holds up an arm and next to her a phone box appears. Lumos seems to instantly understand what is going on.

By that, I mean she groans out a, "You gotta be kidding me! I ain't playing the Matrix." I stare confused at her reflection on the blade, one mixing outrage and teasing. I hear footsteps behind me and see from the corner of my eye Oz stand next to me, panting.

"Too awesome for our own good." Both twin say in one voice, along with Red Eyes whom chuckles in his scythe form. I sulk some more at not getting the joke here but at least Oz is right along with me, looking at me with distressed eyes.

"Well, I think your Demon Weapon gets the objective here." Maka says with a feral grin. The words 'your Demon Weapon' swirl in my mind for a few seconds and I suddenly think it has a nice ring to us. "This phone booth is from a movie and usually when it rings and you need to get yourself out of another world, you normally answer the phone and it takes you out straight away." I still don't know what the hell is a 'movie' and so, I look at her with a confused frown.

She rolls her eyes at me and says, "If you live through the day, which by the way, I decided to speed time for you sweethearts, you'll get to see what is a movie. Now just take note that you need to find and answer that phone here. It's that or get in stuck here for eternity." She motions the booth next to her and raises an inquisitive brow. "Do we have a deal?"

Oz next to me opens his mouth in a protest but I beat him to the punch. I take no hesitation and hold up my hand to Lumos' reflection. "Deal."

"Have fun then." She shakes my hand and her skin against mine is icy, making me feel queasy. She smirks and we're suddenly somewhere else.

"W-wha…?" Oz babbles, as disoriented as I am about our new location.

"This is… cool." Red Eyes says and when I finally take note of where _exactly_ we are, I yell out my own, "Sweet place!" to what Oz smiles up at me along with Lumos.

First of all, let me tell you the ground we're standing on. It's _not_ a ground for starters, but a compass, sophisticated designs drawn on each arrow and spinning wildly on its axe, pinpointing at each second a different direction. Then comes in what landscape I am facing.

"This looks like a very eccentric New York." From the pictures Lumos presented me about that city from those 'postcards' her mother sends, I won't protest against her statement.

The city below – since the odd compass floor is hovering in the air – is lighten by a millions of light, eerie silence suspended all over everything. There seem to be railings of some engine twisting and twirling over the whole metropolitan, adding to the oddness of it. Our voices ricochet in an infinitude of shattered echoes against the invisible walls of this city, the only thing illuminating the black starless sky being the lights inside the windows of each building – and I don't think there is anything inside said skyscrapers besides that light, it seems to be only there to give a certain glow to the dark city below – and the enormous moon floating over our heads, so wide it nearly takes over the entire sky and within hand's reach. I look at it for a second before lifting my arm, my fingertips gently grazing its cold surface and leaving me stunned, moondust gently dwindling down on me from the aster in millions of blazes. I grin despite myself, finding this display amazing.

I look over at Oz and Red Eyes' side to see them gawking at me, both hiding tiny mirth that I don't take notice and making wide astounded eyes at me. I raise a brow at them and ask, "What?" in my most authoritative voice, sending them blinking out of both their dazes.

"Nothing." Oz answers quickly, all the while shaking his head lightheartedly along with albino weapon and smiling a bit, startling me into confusion.

"So," Red Eyes speaks up, bringing my attention to him alongside Lumos', "How do get down there? I don't think we can simply jump without having later to mend a few bones."

_«Actually, this is exactly what you have to do. » _Maka's voice reverberates in my head, slow and dissonantly alluring, inviting me to walk toward the edge as I do and to stare down at the infinity of glowing lights below my feet.

_«Don't be shy, dear Alice. »_ I feel as though I am suddenly plunged under water and that it is filling my ears, muffling every sound outside of my head to the distant feather of a touch, the only clarity being Maka's bizarrely sweet voice, _«show them the fallen angel in you. This is part of who you truly are, after all. »_ I know this is another clue to this new memory hunt but I can hardly bring myself to think correctly, my mind unconsciously dwelling further and further away from this place and Oz and Red Eyes and Lumos and all simply _drowning_ in murky yet honeyed waters.

"Actually," I repeat, my voice sounding oddly as enticing as Maka's, as if I am lullabying myself to sleep. "this is exactly what you have to do." My feet tip themselves over the edge of the compass and Oz spins around with an alarmed look at my dazed expression.

"Alice!"

I fall.

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><p><strong>No, not our precious Aliceeeeee! Wanna know what happens next? I can't tell now, since my computer sessions is almost over so goodbye dear readers and thanks for reading!<strong>

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell! (probably permanently now T_T Wish me luck!)**


	12. Seraphim

**Hello, dear time travelers, here I am, posting a new chapters for all you lovely people! So yes, I am still alive and es, I am posting on the famously superstitious unlucky day of Friday the 13th and yes, I don't care about that since 13 is my favorite number. I got new to ya'll, being the fact hat I'll be now posting every two weeks from now on. Why? Because I simply don't have time anymore to write and GOD I miss those days where nobody bothered me when writing ad constantly wanted me to do laundry and stuff wile my bro is off with the freaking computer somewhere in the world ad I'm stuck doing my someone's orders at home. Oh WHY? *fakes a tear* Sorry for my gibberish, skip it all up!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

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><p>Chapter 11: Seraphim<p>

Oz's PoV

A few moments before, I have been staring at Alice like she was the seventh wonder of the world, as Maka likes to call it. And so was Soul, both of us ogling at the brunette lifting her hand to trace small patterns over the gigantic moon, soft hues of the lightest lavender showering over her along with dust like tiny stars. That add up with the odd compass we are standing on and the magnificent city beneath our feet gives in a spectacular appearance of Alice giving off that startling aura of a warrior goddess holding the moon itself in the palm of her hand.

Both Soul and I had though at the same time that she looked like an angel made to stay in the firmament at that very instant and grinned soundlessly at our common understanding.

Then she fell.

_"Alice!"_ I yell out at the top of my lungs, my fingers reaching desperately for her plummeting figure as her feet leave the floor and walk over nothing but air. But, once again, just like before, my fingers grab nothing but the sky and I watch as if time slowed down, Alice tumble off the edge and fall in the heavens, her eyes wide and staring at the sky as if she couldn't help but marvel at it.

"Holy shit!" Soul swears loudly next to me, having taken his human form at the same time I lunged at Alice to push me after her faster. But it was all in vain.

His hands are suddenly grabbing my shoulders and whirling me to face him, his eyes staring dead in my eyes. "Tell me that you've got a soul with the shape of wings." I shake my head sadly and tune off the small Soul Perception Maka got me with along with the Contract, not wanting to sense her soul and Alice's fade away from my line of vision.

"Hey, Oz! Hey!" Soul snaps his fingers at my face, making me blink a few times before daring to look into those red eyes of his, "This is a total different dimension. That weird clone must have made some changes in here; she wouldn't have possibly let Alice or Maka die so easily, right?"

_«You should listen to him sometimes Oz. He can be smart too. »_ both our heads snap up to look here and there around us, trying to locate the origin of either Maka or her twin's clone.

"Which one?!" Soul stands up and yells out at the sky, as if chastising at God himself, the last word spit out in a raging snarl.

_«Who do you think? »_ she chides at us, the scowl clear in her voice, _«It's your freaking bookworm, idiot. »_ I let out a long breath I hadn't realize I have been holding up until now, before a white blur rushing right at us soars in the black sky, as though a shooting star. Wings unfurl and my jaw drops along with Soul's.

Alice flies away in the sky, massive angel wings fastened to her back, her expression close to raging determination and spear aimed at something flying in front of her. The wings themselves are literally made of blinding light, hues of violet and radiant orange shining at the edges. Feathers scatter in the air but take more the shape of shattered glass of light than anything else. They are beautiful.

Like a ton of bricks hitting me, I realize that she is chasing down a shadow taking the shape and form of herself. She swipes her spear at the shadow duplicate and something juts out of the other end of the handle, used as a lasso against the thing and sending it plummeting down when Alice ropes it around it and slams the rope against it, lashing at it as if she is using a whip instead. She pursues it and I stare in awe as they come closer and closer to us, the ropes taking the image of black spiked chains and the shadow taking more precision until I can hear the laughter coming from it, perfectly imitating Maka's voice hinted with Alice's.

_"That's for trying to kill me!"_ Alice screams, her voice nigh on ringing in my ears as she thrusts and impales with force the sharp edge of her spear right through it at the same time she collides with it past us and against the roof of one of the skyscrapers in a clash of dusty smoke, flying cracked cement and brilliant light flashing in a haze before me, brighter than the moon.

"How do we get to them?!" yells Soul while taking his weapon form and landing in my hands. I have no idea, to answer his question.

_«Idiot! Didn't you hear what Alice said?! »_ Maka's voice rings in my head, powerful and incredibly annoyed, _«You have to jump! You'll know what to do by then. »_

Well, it's all for nothing. I walk toward the edge of the compass like I would walk toward the edge of the world, staring down at the silent metropolis further down illuminated by a play of shadows and lights of every color. My feet tip themselves over the verge and I let myself fall off the compass, adrenaline and wind rushing into my entire being as the ground is suddenly, way, way, _way_ too close to me, my eyes widening, afraid or high with frenzy, I can't tell anymore, the line between the two too blurred for me to decipher or care.

The air screams as I fall and my mind along, joining my mouth to open up and let out a shriek of an emotion too powerful for me to understand, absolute exhilaration immersing me until I am unexpectedly shouting out of pure joy, of sheer jubilation. The buildings flashes before my too wide eyes, the lights inside turning into Perseides, too fast to be normal lights, spinning so wildly around me I can't tell whether they are up or down, whether _I_ am up or down, the space around me twisting and writhing and distorting itself so much everything hardly look like anything anymore.

And suddenly I am soaring higher and higher in the heavens, not even aware of whooping until Soul yells at me to shut up and I reply to scream with me and take delight in the moment. I let the power of B-Rabbit, me, explode all around me and I laugh for no good reason that I am _so_ doing this experience again and will have to bring Gilbert in it for it one day because the scene of him shrieking will be hilarious and I just feel _so alive_ right now.

"Gotta say," he remarks when I can finally breath normally even though my heart is pounding against my chest a thousand miles per second and is practically aching to rip itself out of my ribcage so loud it's beating. "Your wings have style." That takes my attention away from the daze in my head and I let my eyes swim around until they found the fluttering wings beating behind me softly.

Stupor hits me like a bullet and I stupidly grin at them. "Well, they are fitting for me, that's for sure." I admit, shaking my head brightly. I'm pretty sure that my eyes have turned crimson red a long time ago.

The wings are not unlikely the seal on my chest, all curves and jags and blackness. Only said darkness at the tips ends in tiny golden embers, sparks flying away like fireflies. The light of the city and the moon makes the wings seem glassier and carved out of black crystals, the light seemingly absorbed by them to be turned into deep crimson radiance, almost imperceptible if you don't look at the wings closely. I'm pretty sure if my Chain form had wings, they would be like this. Either that or bunny ears to replace them. I prefer the former.

"Oi, Oz! Your master is over here!" Alice's voice wakes me from my daze and I crane my head behind my shoulder to see a foot collide with my jaw and send me flying (haha) in the air. Alice really knows how to kick someone, now does she?

"Stop laughing Soul!" I snarl at the albino who is near hysterical snorts at my graceful touchdown. In reply, Soul laughs even harder and I start banging him (well, the part of the scythe with the eye, anyways) against the concrete of the roof I roughly landed on, my face stinging horribly with scratches marks.

"Okay, okay, just ~Ouch! No, wait, ow, ow, _ow!_... Oz, that hurts damnit!" I start equally laughing when I succeed in kicking Soul's head in payback.

"_Oz._"

"_Soul._"

We immediately sober up at the menacing tone of the two girls calling up our names and I jump straight to my feet to gaze at them with the look of a condemned man being submitted under two women's glare. Alice stands proudly before me with one hand placed in a sassy way on her hip while the other is tightly clenching the spear representing an aggravated Maka glowering at the two of us. Even in her weapon form, she still manages to look intimidating to me and have that look of 'Shut up.' in her eyes.

"Yes, ma'am?" Soul snorts and I glare at him in a way of telling him to shut it before we get murdered. I can see a vein pop on Maka's forehead from the spear blade but otherwise manages to keep clam, which I am grateful for.

"Next time," Alice starts menacingly, stepping forward until we're nose to nose and my mind starts wondering if I shouldn't start writing my testament, "you shouldn't worry too much for me and just do as I order." She pats me on the head with that wide stubborn grin of hers and backs away a few paces, probably satisfied with terrifying me for a few seconds as punishment. The wings behind her have receded to take the smaller shape of what I first thought was a skeletal form but are actually figuring tiny points of light related amongst each other. Wings made of constellations.

"So," starts Soul with a relived sigh from not dying yet, "This phone box is apparently hidden somewhere here but we can't possibly search the whole city, yes?"

"Point taken." Alice replies, another grin of pride painting itself on her face, "That's why there's a compass in the sky." Without any time for either me or Soul in responding her, she slams her foot on the ground and uses it as leverage to propel herself in the sky, sailing away to our starting point and yelling at me to follow suit. And I do so, sparks gently grazing my face with heat.

Later we stand on the glassed floor of the compass, staring at it in confusion as it spins all over the place in no specific path.

Suddenly, Soul's eyes widen and he barks out a few commands, "Oz, Alice, fly over the compass and leave me here. I want to try something." Both of us stare at each other, startled by Soul's words but don't protest, or so, faintly since Alice is Alice and Alice loves to argue or to point out what she thinks clearly.

We watch as Soul takes back his human shape and stare intently at the center of the compass, looking concentrated on something only he can see. The arrow of the device precipitously starts slowing down as though on demand, until it all of the sudden halt itself and is pointing up north. Soul grins a cheeky grin at us and explains, "We all want different things and the arrow doesn't know where to put his head up anymore so it just rolls with it. This instrument here can point to whatever we desire and since what I want is that rescue phone box, then…!" he leaves his sentence hanging in the air and instead motions to the direction the arrow is pointing at, the answer obvious to us.

"Soul, you can sometimes be really awesome." Maka states from the spear while I take his hand and am instead gripping a scythe. I totally agree with her and we're soaring in the air again. I decide right at this instant that I love flying even if rabbits usually like more hopping.

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><p>"A church again?" Soul eyes the building wearily and I won't judge him about it. He nearly got killed in one; it's no surprise that we may have to in a church again and risk our lives there. I can feel Maka's nervousness at going there and try to comfort her, mentally patting her back.<p>

"Come on," I try adopting the enthusiast demeanor, "every building we searched doesn't even have a door to begin with!" that's not a lie. We've tried searching through the tallest skyscrapers but I think they are there just there for scenery. That and we can't even walk on the ground.

The ground floor is filled with colossal craters that lead to nothing but bottomless blackness equally writhing with large sharp shadows and when we've tried making fire – with rocks and rods we've picked on the road – and throwing it inside, the darkness just absorbed its light, quite in the literal term. I don't think it even has fell five meters down below that the flames got extinguished by who-knows-what. Over the ground, between what rests of it anyways, we've seen crosses planted on the dirt, more than probably indicating someone's untimely death in here though there aren't many of them, very few actually. That had me wondering how people can possibly enter this bizarre dimension. Adding to that, Maka has flared something with her Soul Perception coming from further away from us, though it was only there briefly. But being the only clue we've got along with the compass' direction, we still followed it anyways. And here we are.

As we have flown further away from the city, we've neared what I deemed to be the countryside, even if it has nothing similar to the real picture. The black sky, as though we were approaching dawn started to be colored by a crisscross design of pastel and navy blue squares, like a checkboard, the moon still hovering over us in its immensity. Truly, I never thought Maka had such an imagination, it's splendid. She's really full of surprises sometimes.

"Hey," Alice begins, staring at the large building in front of us, "don't they say these places are haunted?" when we stare at her confused at her, she explains herself, "Oz said there are ghosts in churches, right?" at that she stares at me with expectation.

"Yes." I answer her cautiously, enough for her to continue on her words, asking, "Are you two scared of ghosts?" both Soul and Maka's eyes widen for a second before the albino bursts in a fit of laughter, a tiny smile showing on Maka's lips.

"Hey!" Alice roars at him, which is a bit odd considering she is shouting at a scythe, "I know what ghosts are! If you're scared of them, then I'll be there to send their sorry butts out of the first window!" at doing so, she points herself with her thumb, huffing grumpily at him but not able to manage to hide the vanity twinkling in her eyes.

I feel more than see Maka's smile vanish before looking over to see something flash in her features. Surprise maybe? But I don't have time to identify it before she smiles a sad smile at Alice, the light in her eyes a bit more dimed than before. "Thank you Alice, but I think this is something I have to take on my own and we'll be fine." She says that but she doesn't sound as sure as she tries to make herself look. I see her look straight at Soul and I swear unspoken words are passing between them.

At her words, Alice pouts, "Well then, that doesn't mean I won't bite your cheeks if you suddenly feel real scared!" I try not to laugh at that and merely leave mirth to cover my face. Alice can be really caring at sometimes, even if she's too obstinate to show it at these moments. Maka simply giggles at that and urges us inside.

The cathedral on the outside is like any one I would think, though larger, almost like a miniature castle. Towers made of black stone elevate themselves to the point of grazing the moon, which light's has turned to an odd mix of crimson and lavender. Weeping angels have their backs and wings turned to us, as if not wanting us to see their suffering and black marbled pillars rise along with the angels, supporting the building. At the top of the front, a large round stained-glass window gleams in the dark with elaborate portrayals though not about catholics. More like the drawings of the two Alices, holding the world at the palm of their hands, what could be the Abyss of before shimmering in background. It almost looks too real in my opinion and I try not looking too much at it as we enter the basilica.

Our footsteps click like screams against the silence of the entire place, marbled checkered floor under our feet. Dust shimmer in the air as the moonlight filters through the large broken bay windows above us, making everything seem abandoned and vacant of any life. More mottled columns stand inside, some scattered in rumbles across the floor with glass shards and some barely standing, craters painting them all over, as if more than one fight had went on over here. There are no benches in the cathedral and no door hanging by the other room ahead, the hall before letting more light filter from it. I can't see much of it but from whatever I can, it almost looks like some weird sort of…. catholic coliseum?

"Took you long enough." I instantly know it's the doppelgänger talking to us, sensing Maka's light surprise within my mind.

She is sit on what seems to have once been a stone throne, legs crossed and the same replica of Soul's scythe form in her hands. She stands up, the black dress she is attired with ruffling with the motion. It is shorter than what I remember, just above her knees and when she takes a step down the stair that mysteriously materialized out of nowhere, just next to the other room, I also notice that it's open to black stockings, skirt similar to Alyss' revealed beneath along with a black bow laced on her back. Her eyes seem more brighter, glowing with green light that her flowing ash blond hair enrich by making them more intense. It could be just me but Maka's reflection looks like a dark empress. Even if her expression is believed to be almost a pained one.

"You're going to fight us or what?" Alice snaps at her, hands on her hips and defiance marring her features, Maka's image gleams on the spear blade when she glares at the other blond girl, waiting an answer.

The replica doesn't make herself pry, her eyes twinkling with mischief, "Nah, I'm what you guys consider the 'boss fight'. Which means ~" she leaves her sentence hanging in the air and it's Soul who answers.

"That we have other enemies to fight?" he raises a brow questionably at her and the dead ringer nods in agreement.

She takes another step toward us and I feel my whole body tense in waiting, "Yes, I guess you could actually do a good leader for once Soul. This is your area after all." Another flash of mischievousness.

She makes a move to take another step but instead she jumps right in front of us, a cloud of dust rising around her that she swipes away with one twirl of her scythe. She slowly raises it, the movement eerily graceful, all the while speaking to us. "I think Oz knows where the phone box is. He just thought about it a few seconds ago." I feel three pair of eyes land on me and I narrow my eyes.

"Knowing that, it should be easy for you to get where I'll be then." She brutally slams the blade of the scythe on the ground, with more force than I imagined, since a fissure splits the ground apart and races toward us at breaking speed. Wind whirls around me and Alice and we don't have time to react before I can't feel the ground anymore under me feet and my stomach flips and I can hear the reflection's voice chuckle softly in an echo around me and I am falling, falling, falling…

* * *

><p><strong>Oooohhm where is Maka's clone leading them? Somewhere with lots ad LOTS of CRACK so beware for next chapter! XDD<strong>

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell! **


	13. Western spaghetti (literally)

***super deep and gravelly voice* Hello boys (and girls).Sorry, I've been trying to imitate Crowley, I dunno, I really like the douche, I think he's got style for a demon, one of the bad guys in a fan-friggin-tastic show called Supernatural that I have been on a marathon yesterday with season 8 but WHO CARES ABOUT THAT? I justposted a chapter that had me laughing for what my mom thinks is no reason whatsoever other than being crazy. She's only half right. XDD Alrighty-o then, BRING ON THE CRACKY STUFF.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 13: Western spaghetti (literally)<p>

Soul's PoV

"Oh my God."

"Oh Abyss…"

"Crap…"

"Oh my _fucking God!_"

"I think we get that already. No need for the profanity."

"And you know damn well why I'm using such 'profanity' and I think it's reasonable in our current situation."

"Humm… yeah, you're right. _Holy shit!_"

"That's… really weird coming from you Oz."

"Shut up, you asked for it."

The reason of our weird conversation is simple; the whole wide world (well, _this one_ anyways) is motherfucking crazy! I mean, it's as if some drunken eight-year old kid on tequila decided to draw something on some really big canvas with the style of freaking Van Gogh. I mean seriously, don't do drugs people. Drug is _bad_.

"You know, I have a hard time believing all of this is from you Lumos." Alice comments, slightly gawking as we all are at our new location.

"Can you guys stop it already?! That crappy portrait that sent us here is _so_ not me!" as if I'd believe Maka's hissing words.

"Maka, we all know how much you pay for your dope." I tease her, chuckling as she glares at me from her weapon form, a cute pout stuck on her face. Feeling in a good mood at the moment, I decide to add, "After this, I'm going to ask Liz to bring you in AA."

"That's for alcoholics, jerk!" she snarls at me while I snicker at her, a smirk full of sharp teeth crawling on my face.

"This is some really bizarre acid trip." Imagine Oz freaking _Vessalius_ (well, I did some research on his family and _daymn, _I'll tell you that he was the Justin Timberlake of his era) say that, with all the Victorian attire and his nerdy flirty personality and some really cool British accent and you'll get why I'm laughing so hard at the present moment. At my hoots, Oz cries out an indignant, "Will you stop mocking my language abilities?! I'm trying to learn your… _slang._"

"Nah, you're too good for that sweetheart." I snort at him, winking jokingly at him while he mopes dramatically at me.

Back to the subject, being the fucked up acid trip Oz just spoke of. Whoever though of this – and we all know who it is – was either feeling extremely happy or was really high.

We're standing over a transparent platform taking the shape of a giant round slab and all around and beneath us is a sea of what I can only consider as… spaghetti? That's the best and most accurate description that can fit this new land and even the landscape in itself has a weird picture effect, as though all of this were the really weird drawing of a child and that said kid just simply played 'découpage' with the entire scenery. Fish jump in and out of the 'sea' and their appearance too has the strange outcome of an image being cut out of paper and smacked into this world. They looked innocent enough at first when we roughly landed – in a heap of bodies piled one over another, actually, which was _very _awkward for your information – here but the second we took a step toward their direction, they acquired the form of fierce (if paper drawings can be considered as so) piranhas so we took our distance from them and decided to plan things out before getting eaten by paper fish. That said in my mind sounds utterly ridiculous and I can only imagine how it would sound said aloud.

And the sky, just like I mentioned before, is the sky of The Incredible Van Gogh. Yes, I put capitals to the name. You know, the painting where the blue sky has some weird galaxies of golden light in it… yep, I don't remember the name either. My area of expertise is music, mostly jazz and not the holy art of painting. That would be more Kid's, and only if they are symmetrical, let's not forget that.

The subject back to the table, I'll add the fact that the stars – if they can be considered as so, are moving as though being filmed in stop-motion, picture by picture. They move slowly in the air, lazily, taking the shape of spiraling clusters, contrasting largely with the angry red spaghetti-like wires back down here. The birds are replaced by sailing books that seem to meddle both with reality and the painting serving as sky and lotuses float merrily over the red threads, as though boats roaming through a particularly aggressive storm made of giant piranhas and pasta. They glow of every shade, blue, orange, violet, green, red, ever-changing hues of light dancing over the messed world standing before us.

And within all that, I'm considering eating real life-time pasta, just for the sake of it all.

"So…." I drawl the word out, getting everybody's attention, "what exactly are we supposed to confront? Some really high on pasta Moby Dick or the Loch Ness? I mean, you love books so~ Ouch!" Oz bats his lashes innocently at me while I mentally rub my spiritual head from the large knock the little blond brat just threw at me with his foot.

"No insulting, directly or indirectly." He orders at me with a snicker and I stick my tongue out at him, all the while completely ignoring the triumphant smirk spreading on Maka's lips and the unhidden amusement in Alice's eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Oz raises a brow at me with what I call a menacing pout, clearly saying to continue on my sentence or I might receive worse than a simple kick. "But still, what are we supposed to do exactly here?"

The question lingers in the air as I spoke what everybody else thought but didn't say aloud.

_«Alice knows. »_ is the simple answer we receive out of nowhere from whom is obviously Maka's clone. We turn to look at her and a flicker of nervousness flashes over her eyes, her body instantly tensing under the pressure of our gaze. Oz smiles warmly at her and that seems to make the brunette relax a bit, allowing her to speak her thoughts.

"I thought she wanted to toy with us for a moment." Alice confesses to us, her expression becoming thoughtful for a moment before taking the look of confidence and pride she always wear. "Since I asked for a memory, just for a second, I thought she wanted us to find it in this place." From her weapon form, I see Maka nod in agreement with Alice.

"Like a labyrinth." She remarks at her new meister. Weird coming from Maka to call someone her meister, as though I'm just an outsider. Ugh, well that stung.

I add my own thoughts in this, asking, "But how are we supposed something like that in a place like this? Honestly, I don't know how a memory looks like, thank you very much." at that, I raise an inquisitive brow at Oz, demanding an answer from the expert in that zone.

"It can be anything in this place; as long as Maka holds it dear to her, it can contain a memory. In the dimension of Cheshire, it was a lace with a bell attached to it and it was always fastened around Alyss' cat." He explains to me, my face scowling a bit more at each word. Finding something like that here is nearly impossible!

_«And you have until noon to find it. »_ that clone can seriously go fuck herself. From Oz eye twitching in annoyance, I suspect he is feeling and thinking the same thing.

From the corner of my eye, I see Maka's face change suddenly from one of seriousness to one of awestruck. I open my mouth to ask her what's in her mind, suspecting she already has an idea of what kind of object could sustain a memory when she yells, beating me to the punch, "The Nightmare Queen!"

"Come again?" Oz babbles confusingly while I just sit back – if that's possible while in weapon form – and wait, certain Maka is about to launch herself into a long speech, in which I am not disappointed.

"When I went out of the reading room and Alice came to join me later on, the first clue we got of the living shadows in the library was this book I read once, _The Nightmare Queen_." She declares to us, her eyes roaming between both Oz and mine's crimson ones. "I really liked it and it was a book I used to read a lot as a child. Even if it was morbid." At that she blushes a bit and I roll my eyes, a light chuckle barely above a whisper leaving my lips. "I felt like I could relate to it in some ways. The memory of me was hinting me to it, telling me that it was this very book I would need to search." That last sentence makes me scowl again and Oz seems to notice it too.

"But how did she know you would need to search it at some point? Alice hadn't even made the deal with her yet." He asks just as we jump into the sea of spaghetti and piranhas, Oz swinging me as though he already knew me for years, cleanly slashing across the wet scales adorning the aggressive fishes constantly aiming their teeth at him. He jumps from lotus to lotus, as Alice does the same and wields Maka like a master, always whirling her spiked chain around each spaghetti sauce covered fish like a whip, always twirling her staff as to decapitate in a single swipe her foes. Chains unravel from everywhere, lashing and thrashing like hissing snakes at every freaking fish targeting themselves like bomb missiles at us.

"I don't know." Is Maka's quiet answer and I can clearly imagine the worried frown creasing her features. I hate it when she gets herself up like that, that isn't the bold meister I know.

"Don't get your pants in a bunch, bookworm!" I yell over the cacophony the screeching piranhas are doing to everybody's ears. And seriously, why _screaming_ piranhas? "Whether you know why or not, you're still going to get some answers at some point, right?"

About that, even if I sound enthusiastic for her, I still have a bit of a hard time coping with all of this. Of course, I'm content to finally have my own answers concerning Oz's origin and Alice's sudden appearance (and though half of me hates her for it, other part of me is congratulating her for the awesome once-in-a-lifetime kick she gave Maka when barging out of literally nowhere), it's still a bit hard to understand all of this. About evil Jack Vessalius taking over Oz, about Alice being the twin sister of what could be the most powerful thing in the whole world. Scratch that, _the whole freaking universe_ damnit! And that's not even including my suspicion of still being in the dark about some things. Some stuff doesn't even make sense at all.

I mean, what _exactly_ did they found out in the end of Alice's search for her memories? How did they escape the Baskerville's clutches? Why did Oz get captured and nearly killed? Because that strange clan could have just locked him up somewhere, it's not like he had magical powers that could help him escape, right? No with B-Rabbit's powers on lockdown too. And speaking of the devil, _who is B-Rabbit really?_ Because there is no way in hell I'm going to believe that it's a simple Chain Oz made a Contract with to escape the Abyss. No, they aren't telling me stuff and it isn't a little information. More like _a lot_. And I am a 100% sure that I didn't hallucinate Maka getting possessed by whatever or _who_ever Chain B-Rabbit is.

Are they afraid of my reaction? Are they thinking I will go straight to the army and tell that one of my friends is a Chain? Hell to the no! Well, I think. That is, if they don't hurt my meister.

"Well, I wouldn't have come this far for nothing yes?" Maka's voice is muffled by screaming fish, slamming me back to reality and out of my thoughts about the trust they have for me.

I know my meister though and I know she won't stay long quiet about that little secret those three hold together. A relationship between and a weapon needs absolute trust, right? And though I am too righteous like her, I know how to keep secrets too. So why is she afraid to tell me? B-Rabbit can't be _that _dangerous, right?

I suddenly feel my scythe form being lurched forward and I ignore the ripping sensation of going through yet again another paper fish, feeling as though a pair of scissors instead of a scythe. A large wave suddenly ripples through the 'water' and Oz leaps away just as it crashes down on the emplacement where he was just a second ago.

"Nothing on my side!" he yells at the point far away from us representing Alice a few minutes later, the blond exploring the pasta sea.

"Me neither!" she shouts back far ahead from us, using her chains, both Maka's and B-Rabbi's to leap to our direction, barely missing the wrath of the raging sea's waves getting bigger and bigger by the second, literally. The moment Alice manages to join us, the waves are so large they loom by a good few meters over our presently tiny forms, looking dangerously about to crash down by any second. By now the fish are falling off the waves like a waterfall, bullets of fishy meat shot at us.

"No offense Oz but it kinda looks like shit is about to hit the fan." I remark, pointing out the obvious. He sends me a glare at me but otherwise doesn't protest against my statement.

"For once I'm with Red Eyes." I still don't get why Alice doesn't call me by my real name but whatever. Like some commander-in-chief, she orders us, "People should know how to… RETREAT!" we lunge backwards at the same time the flood crashes over us, feeling threads of pasta slapping both Oz and I as we are submerged by it with piranhas flooding around us from everywhere.

"Oz!" Alice cries out as she is being thrown further away from us.

"Can't you Resonate?!" I shout at him over the fishy cries, glaring at him for an answer, and quickly. I can feel sharp teeth sinking into me but I am more worried for Oz's current state, him being tossed everywhere by the fishes until we can barely tell where is up and down, the only clue being the color blue of the sky briefly flashing before our eyes before disappearing.

He returns the glare with a slight blush of embarrassment, "I don't know how to!" Oh, you've got to be _kidding me!_

"The situation is critical and you don't know how to even do that?!" I groan loudly in despair when I realize that and grumble a, "Here, let me help you in this." I snap my eyes close and let myself sink into black inkiness, floating in nowhere and everywhere and waiting for Oz's soft hues of crimson light to appear in the shape of his soul, in what it doesn't make itself pry and reveals itself a few seconds later, glowing in apprehension at what I'm about to do.

"H-hey!" he stammers his eyes wide in shock and stunned. "What are you doing?" Ah, the poor boy. Did he ever felt someone's soul press against his? Go figure. I graze my own soul a bit more against his, feeling his nervousness a little more powerfully and emphasizing my own confidence before giving it to him, a sign of reassurance. His body immediately eases itself and he moves my scythe more fluidly, me feeling his senses sharpening all of the sudden and my calmness washing over him.

"Now do the same and make it more powerful." I commend him and he follows suit, letting my form rip through a few fish in one straight line while I feel his soul wedge mine more, sending his emotions while I turn them into serenity and readiness and enhance his physical speed to the one a scythe can move when being swiped, along with his strength. He doesn't seem to notice but hues of cold blue and blood red light are seemingly engulfing him in their glow, becoming brighter by the second.

"Is it normal that it's so easy?" he asks, frowning slightly as he seems to notice the radiance surrounding him, turning violet by the mix of both colors. He appears confused, as if it wasn't something he expected but doesn't comment.

"No, it's usually hard for the fledglings arriving at school but you've been already here for a while already so I thought you already knew that. Apparently not." I snort a laugh at that while a flash of pride skims across his face at being able to do this at his first time. I ruin that by saying, "You still need though to do this until you reach your breaking point." A pout covers his face and he yells out a, "Let's do this then!" with a grumped huff.

Without warning, his soul is pushing against mine until we're both yelling out the mania mounting in us. As he passes his emotion to me and I intensify them along with mine, sensing his determination and the upsurge of his hidden grief, I sense something else rise in him, shuddering and withering, another power rising into existence, treacherous and more than I could bear to hold onto more than a few seconds. At the same instant, I sense my scythe form change, only taking a matter of seconds before I open my eyes to two different places. At each end of the staff, a sharp curved blade expending to massive proportions, glowing amethyst and red toned at the edge. I can see shadows taking the shape of chains and untangling themselves, untouchable and unbreakable yet mortal. Before, both Oz and Alice were only limited up to three chains, now it seems that they are their own ocean, immense and seemingly infinite, coming straight from Oz's own gloom.

A tornado of slices and lashing is out of the blue surrounding us as Oz calmly turns the ocean to ashes with clean cuts and jabs while twirling around himself like a ballet dancer, agile, smooth and composed. Chains, both physical and shadowy, pierce everything around us until we can only see every hue of violet and black possible and we finally manage to see Alice further away, slowly but surely sinking and eyes wide at the sudden explosion coming from us. Oz, the knight he seems to always be for and to Alice, joins her in a matter of seconds, shredding efficiently the fish about the eat her head from above.

"How are you doing that?!" she yells, both fighters beaded with sweat and filled with cuts and gashes, coats jagged and torn and revealing bloody wounds clearly needing treatment in the next hour. "Answer me Oz!" she urges him and I feel more than hear him take a long intake of breath.

"It's called Soul Resonance but it's too… _feely_ to explain in words. Maka can teach you though and right now it's very helpful." Before Alice can answer, I am quick to alert my current meister and his friend (well, there is obviously _something_ between them but I'm going to shut up for now) of something important.

"Oz, look above!" I bellow at him, startled myself by what I'm seeing. He jumps over the second wave hurled into us, his left hand grasping Alice's wrist and both land on chains, tip-toeing like professionals over it before regaining balance and daring to listen to my warning.

Overhead of us and the spider web of chains having unfurled from Oz, the books mimicking birds are launching themselves at us at grand V speed, now outwardly replacing cannonballs instead.

Alice, aware of the danger, yells at her friend, "Oz, dive _now!_" her yells are futile unfortunately, as suddenly a trio of hardcover books are smashing themselves right into the Vessalius' chest, brutally and violently. He is beyond doubt going to have bruises later on. He coughs out a garbled cry before the books are hitting his back instead and are projecting him onward to the sky, Alice nearly grasps him before he is torn away from her, both her and Maka's shriek crying out our names the last thing we hear from them before another pile of flying books are hurled against Oz and transforming him into a shooting star when we are flung down to the sea of pasta. Right into the open jaw of the largest piranhas I've seen yet.

"Less screaming, more fighting!" I yell at him, reminding the boy that we can still tear that thing apart before it does. "Got it!" is the response I receive from him, told in a pained voice of someone falling off the sky with books nearly stabbing and crushing him to death and plummeting into the jaws of death, the term not at all figurative.

I brace myself for the impact, tensing along with Oz as the jaw and teeth are closing around us, trapping us in darkness. We both know exactly what we're about to do and we're only waiting for Oz's signal, out thoughts meddling into one and our emotions turning into a single one; anticipation.

_"Now!"_ he yells and a white blinding glow explodes all over us, sign of our Resonance attaining a limit we've just surpassed by thousands.

I can feel _it_; B-Rabbit's power flowing toward me in all its immensity as I enhance it and pass it right into Oz's soul, multiplying it by five to the least by what I'm observing. It feels as though my own soul is at the edge of exploding when even grazing such might, I'm under the impression of it all being almost a privilege to even hold even for a millisecond such strength in my palms. Chains related to small scythes are suddenly plunging into every bit of flesh they can find, Oz sending colossal waves of energy through swipes and strokes over everything, perfectly imitating a tornado tearing the paper piranha apart while I control one of those hawsers to grasp the first flying book into view, which, what a coincidence! Is actually the book of the Nightmare Queen.

_«Oh Soul, you should be careful with this peculiar boy here…! »_ says the demon running in my blood within my head, my mind, and my soul. I grit my teeth and try not to let said black blood surge too high on my sanity level. I have to focus on my current task.

_«Shut the hell up! There's nothing to worry about except you being damn annoying! »_ I mentally growl, the sudden variation in my Soul Wavelengths making my present meister look at me worriedly but otherwise stay quiet on his thoughts.

Oz flies away with me in his hands and latches many chains toward Alice's direction, determined to catch her on his way to wherever this book is leading us to. Out of the blue, just as Alice was lacing her chain to Oz's, an army of fish are clamping their jaws over our connected chains, tearing them apart and the only sound I hear is Maka screaming in pain, the chain Alice used being part of her weapon form. I yell out for her, shouting, "We're coming back! I promise you Maka! Stay alive!" I doubt she heard me but honestly, I don't care. And those damn fishes can seriously go to hell. _Real_ Hell, not the Abyss.

"The coliseum!" Oz shouts suddenly out of nowhere, my eyes growing confused at his words, "Go for the coliseum!"

We are without notice plummeting through the sky. _Again._ The sky is now a new sky, the land is a new land and this world is a new world, filled with golden dust. The afternoon sun is covering everything in a blanket of blazing amber shades of golden. I can see a small town coming into view, too fast to my taste.

"Can you summon those wings again now?" I call out at Oz, snapping him out of his daze and making him close his eyes, as though reaching something only he can see.

He nods, dazedly doing so. "Yes." He says and the next instant Oz release one large buffet to slow his fall, those creepily cool wings of his back at being strapped to his rear, me sensing sparks grazing my blade. Dust is blown away by the beat of his wings and after a moment, he nods at me, signaling my transformation into a human, slightly sighing in relief of stretching myself.

Though, don't mistake my emotions, within me is still the wild turmoil of emotions I've been experiencing earlier. The panic at nearly dying for the millionth time, the adrenaline coursing through my veins, my worry for Maka and Alice, though it's mostly my meister who's at the top of my priority, my concern only intensifying by the second judging by the chaos we just left. If she were to die, I'd…

Nevertheless, I still know her and I am aware that she's one hell of a fighter when she wants to be and add Alice in the equation and you've got what you could compare to a powerful witch to combat. And that means _big._

Observing our new environment, I can immediately tell that we're going western spaghetti here, seeing as the little I'm observing is enough to make me feel as if I should wear at least a cowboy hat and boots and arrive while riding some random horse at sunset. Everything's in here, the saloon, the sheriff's station, the cliché prison, the arid desert burning everything down to ashes.

Even the large tower dominating the whole town is here, the timepiece ticking softly as seconds, minutes and hours pass.

Wind blows softly into Oz's face, making his blond locks whiz gently to the air. Yet they don't cover his expression of utter shock mixing jubilation and horror as he stares at who we're about to have a showdown with, his own black coat rustling to the light breeze gusting across town, sandy blond hair sticking out messily. But what is the most noticeable about the boy before us are the striking icy blue eyes staring down at us glaringly. That and along with the long black sword sheathed to his hip.

"Hey Shorty."

The tolls of the twelfth hour ring brazenly across town like a death sentence as the pendulum strikes noon the second we step foot into the village and we meet our next foe.

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><p><strong>Piranhas... oh my god, paper <strong>**piranhas... in friggin spaghetti... hahahaha, I can't believe what I just wrote about, gihihihi...! Oh dear, this is too hilarious, I think I should cut the crack called sugar rush from my system, it's making me do weird stuff. Nevertheless, with the plot I have in mind... YES, I CAN BRING _HIM_ BACK! I HAVE THE POWER AND I AM A MASTERMIND OF MANY SECRET KNOWLEDGE THAT I _SHALL_ USE AT MY ADVANTAGE. *stops the epic music*If you are still reading this and still want to read more, god you people are awesome. To put with this trippy chapter and still want more, it makes my heart warm up and fuzzy and suddenly I want Nutella... *runs off to the kitchen cupboard, ruining the emotional scene***

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell!**


	14. At noon is my showdown

**Howdy ya'll! Watcha doing in here? Wanting to read this chapter? Oh boy, you're in it for a wild ride then, you might want to give our little Oz a big hug at the end of it! *cuts the weird accent*Aheemmm. Sorry 'bout that! So, if anybody here is reading The Strangest Horcruxe, forgive me for my terrible tardiness and my incapacity at posting the latest chapter today. I've been bumping on some writer's block for a while, feeling a bit unsatisfied with my chapters and whatnot. Just a fair warning for my fellow readers!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 14: At noon is my showdown<p>

Oz's PoV

He's back. That is impossible. Yet there he is, alive and in the flesh.

Elliot Nightray, supposedly dead after having rejected his Chain, is back from the grave.

"Hey Shorty." His voice, his face, his hair, his eyes, his clothing, everything is exactly as though he were alive, truly alive. Everything to the sword at his hip, supposed to be with Glen at the present moment, supposed to be with the man who regretted the entire world, with the boy who hates the entire world, who both hate themselves.

The reaction I have is everything except what I expected. Honestly, it is so surprising that even I don't understand at all, Soul even less by the way he's looking at me for the way I'm acting.

"Who are you?" my voice is low, flat. Yet an undercurrent of hidden anger and resentment and guilt are flooding beneath, making my tone hard and steely and very, very icy. I don't even notice my hands clenching into tight balls of fists until _his_ voice brings me back to reality.

"What are you talking about?" his tone, confused is as the same as _his_ real voice, always hinted with irritation no matter what and seemingly reserved mostly for me. It hurts, it stings and it burns into my skin, through my flesh and right into my heart. "You know me right? I'm Elliot, your friend."

_Your friend._

Non, no, no, _no._ You're lying, you're lying, you aren't him, _you're lying._

"You are one of her minions, are you? Stop giving me bullshit." I can hear my voice like I wasn't really here, like I am some spectator observing a show with a boy suffering great pain in silence, suffering the grief he's tried again and again to hide and crush and push away from his heart, from his soul. The air is sharp, pained, _angry, enraged_. "Stop playing around with me like I was some sick game to you!" the first shout, the first time in a while I ever get so angry at anybody and I hate _her,_ I hate myself, I hate everything in this devious dimension.

"Oz?" I can barely hear Soul's cool voice reaching me, so much I'm seeing red.

"Are you alright?" Of course I'm not alright. My dead friend is in front of me, speaking to me in confusion and annoyance as though he's always been alive, like he's never abandoned everyone in the very sacrifice he loathed against. He takes a step in front of me and I stand on my ground, even though my entire mind is screaming at me to run, to get as far away from this illusion as possible. Or I might do something very, _very_ bad.

Like kill it, for example.

"Oz, what are talking about? Who are you talking to?" he asks me, icy blue eyes gazing straight into my reddening eyes and that does it to me. It only took a few words from him and I'm barely hanging on my sanity.

"Who are you?!" I suddenly yell out, barely restraining from screaming even louder. I can pick up the quiver in my tone, the fear and fury radiating in waves from it and I am certain my expression is revealing those same emotions, contorted in what I suspect is an ugly countenance. "Do you think this is funny?! That taking my dead friend's appearance will fool me?"

"Oz…" he said my name, twice now. Like he got used to my presence and that I was finally worth being called by my real name. I don't let him continue on his sentence.

"Would you still think this is funny if I killed Soul under your very eyes, _Lumos?!_" I spit the word like the worst of insults now, using it for my friend's clone, yelling at thin air as though I am screaming at God itself. In two long and quick strides, both my hands are grasping in a vice grip the illusion's shoulder and shaking him as hard as I can, yelling right at his face. "Why _the fuck_ are you doing this, eh? For fun? Because I can't what any of it is fun! Why are you doing this? _Who are you?!_" I can hear the whistle of the air from the punch before feeling it collide with my jaw line, sending me flying a few feet back.

"I'm Elliot Nightray, damnit!" he shouts back at me, face officially angered and frustrated. Even that is too much for me to bear. I'm not happy to see him, I'm horrified. I'm mad.

"_You're not!"_ I scream even more loudly, feeling my eyes starting to sting from the welling up with tears, there but not quite falling yet. Nearly though. "He's _dead!_ Because of me, _he's dead!_ You shouldn't exist! You're just a damn illusion!" I can feel the floor rumbling underneath me, the sheer power of B-Rabbit slowly rising from the wild turmoil of emotions raging within me. They set the ground beneath my feet cracking and flying in splinters, as my head is whirling and spinning in the same way.

"Oz, snap out of it!" I can see from the corner of my eye the brilliant flash of light coming from Soul materializing a scythe to replace his left arm, just in case.

_«You can kill it, you know. You have the power… »_

_"Shut up Jack!"_ I yell out at thin air. I know I must look crazy at the present moment, talking to nobody, grinning psychotically like I am, screaming at thin air as well as what only _looks_ to be my almost best friend. I can see him looking to be taken aback by my words, gazing at me now with what seems to be non-understanding.

Confusion settles on his face, making him scowl. "Dead? Oz what the hell are you talking about? I'm alive, your friend," the word is spit out in a loathing sneer, the same way I told Maka's reflecion's name, "Lumos saved me. She said so herself."

_"Stop lying!"_ chains unravel themselves out of the blue and their sharp spikes are grazing his face as they aim themselves at him, my very will commanding them. "She's trapped somewhere; she doesn't know shit about you until I came in and now she's fighting the stupid doppelgänger that wants us dead and created you for that very purpose!" I let my fingers rack my hair, pull at them to soothe the pain exploding in me with a more physical one, even if does little to calm me down.

I laugh, the sound hollow yet deranged and full of agony and sorrow I've always pushed back for later, trying to deal with my current problems without the entirety of my emotions hindering me. I am a wreck at the moment, letting hysterical laughter bubble out of my throat as I let the ridiculousness of the whole situation take me away while the dusty dirt under me starts crumbling and wavering in brutal earthquakes. I feel so heavy, the invisible weight on my shoulders making me sag sadly to my knees, my chest still shaking in mad hilarity.

"You're… you're _dead…_ why are you here, what are you doing here, why do you look so alive when I saw your dead corpse, when we _all_ saw your dead corpse?" I can feel my Chain form surging in a mass of shadows over my back, growing wider and bigger by the second and hiding the blazing sun from me.

"What…?" his voice is a baffled murmur, his gaze sweeping over me with a look of sheer surprise. He doesn't seem to notice or care that my chains are at the very edge of piercing him apart.

Truly, what is wrong with me? Why am I reacting like such? I am aware of how I must look terrifying at this very instant, to this delusion and Soul who is currently looking at me with genuine worry, like he is debating what to do next to me.

"Hey, Oz there is no need to kill anybody here, whether they're real or not." The albino says in an attempt to calm my rampant self. I don't get how he manages to keep such a calm demeanor in such a chaotic situation. The chaos originating straight from me. The chains multiply themselves more and more going from one point of the sky to another, from the air to the ground, all managing the direct their jags at the mirage frowning at me. "Please tell me you're even listening to me." Just barely.

"But I am real!" he shouts at me and I don't doubt he would have walked up right at me if my chains weren't nearly stabbing him at the moment. "I am not dead Oz! I don't feel dead and I am not lying!"

"Cut to the chase already, damnit." He stares at me wide-eyed, myself not believing how much swearing I just used to insult in the last few minutes. I let a sad chuckle past my lips, my hands hiding once more the view of him and the world surrounding me, as well as concealing the lonesome tears slipping past my eyes. "I've had it with people I care about dying. You are lying…" another fit of giggles leave my lips and I raise my arm as high as I can, palm out, more chains rising into existence from the motion, "_You are LYING!"_ closing my hand in a tight fist, I hear everywhere me the crashing and crackling and shattering of the dimension around me, houses exploding to dust, chains whirling dangerously close to this damn hallucination while Soul yells out my name in alert, warning me to stop this already.

Oh, but I'm only starting! If Leo felt like crap, it is paling more and more comparing to me now. Or not, depends on the situation.

I'm drowning in my grief. This is the worst moment to let it and I am perfectly conscious of it all but then again, I don't even know why it's happening in the first place. Everything I've bottled up to concentrate my priorities on saving the world has exploded, I guess. Maybe I just don't want to believe that… Elliot might never have died at all and simply hid in some way. That he might have betrayed us with his resurrection.

All I know is that I am sinking in inky blackness.

Elliot's PoV

The King of Hell, that's what Oz appears like at the moment, that's the first thought describing him that surges into my mind when I look at him, when I see the cracks created by him in the very fabric of space, fracturing it like glass. The empty houses I've grown used to for so long are collapsing to dust with a single flick of his hand, the chains are spinning around me crazily, grazing me, cutting my skin in light scratches that I'm barely aware of, so stunned I am by his actions, by his violent attitude, by his disturbed laughter.

Yet he looks so vulnerable, so frail, so fragile.

As though he is on the verge of… of…what?

This boy, gazing at me with wide, angry, scared eyes, who is he? Who does he thinks I am? Why is he so mad at me? Why doesn't he want to see me alive? I was perfectly alive to him a while ago, the last I heard of him. So what changed his opinion? What made him think I was dead? I don't remember ever dying in the first place!

"Why?" I ask more to myself than anybody else, Oz ever so slightly lifting his head in what I think is to look at me through his fingers. "Why won't you believe me?" I shake my head in confusion, cutting myself some more even if I couldn't care less about it.

"Because I saw you dead. Because Vincent told me how you died sacrificing yourself, because Leo went mad, _insane_ of guilt and decided to try and kill me since he's Glen Baskerville. Because you're only trying to trick me into thinking that it's you when you're not him. This… this is _sick._ How can she think such things?" the words seep into my mind and my eyes grow even wider than they already are, unable to comprehend the situation.

"Leo… insane?" that's hardly possible, everything he just said is hardly possible. Last time I saw my valet, he didn't even have time to react that Maka took me away; her dull green eyes not even looking back behind her while mine were impossibly wide. Alice and Oz joined in but before Gil even reacted, we were already gone from his sight, vanished from everybody's sight. "You're the one blabbering nonsense Oz! That's not possible, you're the one insane! And if you think I'm dead, shouldn't you be happy to see me again?!"

"Oz…" I hear a menace rumbling beneath Soul's voice, his red eyes slowly growing determined and a bit angry themselves.

"No, I'm not happy…" he whispers, finally letting his hands gradually pull away from his face and the sight nearly turns my stomach upside down. Instead of the emerald irises I've finished by growing accustomed at some unknown point, I see two scarlet eclectic orbs staring back at me, two crimson moons literally gazing at me with black tears streaming down his face.

As though Oz is bleeding his misery.

"I don't deserve such happiness, no matter what everyone tells me."

_«Hey, hey! Did you know his blood is black? Did you _their_ blood is black? Did you know how easy infecting a Chain with madness is? You just need to Resonate… »_ it's her voice. In all that time I've been left stranded here in Nowhere Land, she starts speaking up only now?

Soul's eyes grow wide as he realizes something I can't grasp, possibly even more broader than mine are.

"NO!" he screams, fingers already reaching for the madly grinning Oz.

Maka's PoV

"For crap's sake!" I shriek in sheer anger, above the screaming fishes. Actually, scrap that. The piranhas are transforming themselves into _motherfucking killer orcas! _Excuse me for the vulgarity but I'm more than a little pissed off right now. Like, I wanna tear to shreds everything that doesn't wear the name Alice at the present moment.

"Oh come on!" snorts Alice, her grin wicked and nasty as she continues on her words, bellowing, "We just need to blow these slaves off, right? Piece of cake!" while she plummets down right into their open jaws, sharp teeth stained with what seems to be… rotted bubblegum?

Well, I'm never eating _that_ again, am I? And they were my favorite sort…

"How can you know that?" I ask, gritting my teeth against the blood rushing to my ears from all the adrenaline.

"You can transform into anything right?" she inquires with a raised brow, not appearing bothered by the least that every chain she created are being broken away, that nothing is stopping her imminent demise right beneath her that is quickly approaching every second.

I look at her in surprise. "I felt it the second I touched your weapon form. You're very powerful, though not as much as me and if you can transform into any weapon, than we can beat anything we want!" she doesn't seem afraid, nor does she look reckless. No, she looks more like… confident. As if she has faith in me, smiling down at me like she is confident in my new abilities, confident than nobody except these blasted things are going to die today.

Though I am not as poised as she is. Until she just mentioned it, I didn't even know I could that. Worse, now that she said it, I feel yet again that hungering need to exactly do the opposite of her words. That if I don't, the action of unleashing my full potential will result in something more than a little wrong, something I feel familiar with somehow. The proof is the reason why we're stuck here, the memory of me who drowned in her resentment. And where do these skills come from to start with?

_«They're from your nature, your identity. »_ Ugh, not that speech again.

"Shut your trap, freaky clone!" yells my current meister, launching me to the air while gripping the chain connected to the end of the staff of the spear I am, the pointed end tumbling in the pitch-black of the first orca's mouth in view.

"Do it now!" Alice orders me and I focus on the first thing that comes into my mind.

I can feel Alice's surprise swirling in my mind as the whole of the orca explodes in a blast of blazing fire and smoke, my self turning into an AGM-114 Hellfire missile and blowing away in landing at blinding speed. For only for the matter of a second, I am only spirit and soul, sensing every atom of this world reconstructing themselves, every tiny particle be _me_ and I feel elated, dizzy, the whole world going in merry-go-round of flames and air and oxygen and azote and absolutely _everything_ before my body rematerializes from the hecatomb I just created, reaching as Alice does for both our hands. We hang on each other for dear life, me not able to register much besides the fact that I have turned again into my original weapon form. Yet when I reach my spectral hand out of the staff to reach out for nothing, I see my fingers perceiving the sensation of moving in water and my touch… twisting something.

And when I realize what's going on, a shocked gasp leaves my lips.

"Alice." I call out, my voice flat and stunned yet louder than usual. Landing over one of the last lotus having not already been eaten, pierced or burned away, she sends me a questioning look, urging me on. "Look at my hand." When her eyes roam to where my fingers are, as I take on my human shape once again, a look amazement crossing over her features.

"Wow…" she whispers in awe.

My hands are pushing through space, the entire image twisting beyond recognition, as though I can control it.

I am literally distorting the fabric of reality.

Something is wrong with this place. Something is really wrong with _me._

The one million dollars question? Easy one.

What am I?

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><p><strong>So, western showdown, PH and SE style, meh! If Oz's a bit OOC, forgive me then! But he is after all, ignoring his grief at the moment to save the world for me, it would have happened at one point or another. And the plot around our Maka is thickening! OOOHHH! Are there theories here? Any at all? Oh well, I still love you all for reading and following my story, you're my awesomesauce when I'm in my 'grumpy days' XDD Thank you so mucchh! *sends you rainbows of skittles via Nyan Cat*<strong>

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell!**


	15. Blood stigma

**Hey there! New chapter for today and in bonus, it's right on time! (which is a lot when you look at how late I usually post my chapters T_T) Anyhow, I should have done this before but now I'm doing it: this story may include more or less swearing and cussing. There, all done. Now, you can and read my lovely readers!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 15: Blood stigma<p>

Soul's PoV

"Shit, duck now!" before he can even do as said, I am already slamming Elliot's body on the ground just as many chains all at once wheeze past where his head stood a second ago. Apparently, I have decided that he needed more saving than Oz after thought, well at the present moment anyways. "Roll away!" he doesn't make himself be told twice and lunges away, biting the dust as we both do, me quickly trailing after him. As we move at a safe distance from the tornado of chains, I watch the teen unsheathe the sword strapped to his left side, observing how his grip on it tightens more and more as we move further away from the deranged scythe wielder.

"Why are you going away Elliot?!" he cries out, whether from insane glee or uncontrollable rage I can't tell, "Are you running away because I discovered your little secret?! I'm fine with that; I'll still find you, one way or another!"

"I am not running…..humpf!" this boy doesn't manage to finish his sentence as I clamp my hand over his mouth and drag him over the rundown of what must have been a saloon but is now only a large pile of twisted metal, stone and wood.

I lower myself level-eyed to him with what I hope is a piercing glare and growl a, "Don't act stupid, you're going to get us located and eventually, killed." I release him at the last word and the boy doesn't bother hiding the angry glare he gladly returns back to me, hand still griping the handle of his sword.

"First of all, I am not stupid!" he hisses in a infuriated whisper, blue eyes frosting all over with chilliness, "And second of all, what the hell is wrong with him Soul?!" for the fraction of a second, surprise leaks out on my face before I regain my composure, trying to keep my head in the game. A deadly one at that.

"Well then, first of all I don't know jack shit about you so how do you know my name?" I return the snarl with one of my own, though trying to make my tone as steely and imposing as possible without yelling. "Second of all, Oz is going crazy because of something called black blood that enhances madness to the point of no return if nothing's keeping him sane." Again, a flash of confusion crosses over his austere features before he too tries to repress his emotions from showing too much.

"Don't…" he shakes his head, as if trying to wrap his mind around his words, "Don't any of you remember me? Oz says I'm supposedly dead, you don't even know squat about me while I'm familiar with you since the day _she_ saved me. And I know already about the black blood running in your veins. Your partner, Lumos, already used it to her advantage once." That suddenly halts my thought process. How exactly did he know all that? And why does he call Maka, Lumos? Another earthquake races all over the ground and I grit my teeth.

"You could be what Oz thinks you are. An illusion." I point him out and his jaw clenches, his expression taking an irritated appearance.

Before I can add more to the statement, Elliot decides to add his two cents by snatching his sword and slicing the edge slowly, meticulously over the forearm he rolled his sleeve out, revealing a long cut bleeding red over his skin, all the while gazing right into my eyes. "That enough?" he demands once pulling his outer cover down.

I shake my head. "No, I need to know if you have a soul. But I don't have Soul Perception." At that he grabs my arm and leans in close to me, his face taking a determined attitude.

"Resonate with me then." A chain whistles past us and impales itself through gravelly remains of some building. "We don't have much time so hurry."

"Come on, come on, wherever you are ~!" comes in the jeering voice of Oz, laughing giddily at his own taunt.

I quickly retort, "If you say so." before letting my arm take the shape and form of the scythe blade I finally managed to get used to its new appearance now. I don't ask the questions poking at my mind of how he knows how to Resonate, more important priorities towering over them.

Snapping my eyes shut, I can immediately sense a hot-tempered and impatient soul brush against mine clumsily, as though this boy is still not used to do such a thing, as all novices are at their first few times. It's nothing like Oz, whose first time seems to come as naturally to him as for any professional meister/weapon pair. As I sense his hand gripping my blade like some life saver, I also perceive the sizzling icy blue soul attempting but failing at even grazing my own essence, the sensations of it for him too much to bear for now. But it's enough proof for me to confirm his declaration.

"Okay," I grumble while pulling from him, watching his haughty face impatiently waiting my response, "so you're real. That still doesn't change the fact that we've got a rampaging Oz at the moment who wants your head and that he won't come listen to us quietly."

"So we need to get this idea through that bratty head of his by force and that's not even including that he's got the freaking most powerful Chain with him but also the capacities your damn black blood grants him." it is a simple fact.

"Glad we're on the same page." I agree with him with a grim look on my face before we lunge out in the open.

"What are we supposed to do?" he asks-yells at me.

"Improvise!"

Elliot's PoV

I become the instant target of every chain roaming the entire place, darting away from them with the sharpened reflexes of someone who's been one too many times often fighting for his life with nobody but himself to cover his back. And this place was once upon a time crawling with danger. Go figure what happened to them when I got left astray here.

"Hey, ya moron, I'm over here!" I shout with the very purpose of taking Oz's attention away from Soul toward me, which he gladly do so. I already have an idea in mind about what kind of tactic to use and if Oz is perfectly conscious beneath all that insanity submerging him, I am pretty sure he is never going to let me live it down for the rest of my life. And Soul is probably going to murder me later.

But if there's one thing I got to learn about surviving, it's to use the resources around you, not matter what the cost. And right now, from all I know about this stuff, it's the only option I have at being equal to Oz at this very instant.

"The only moron here is you and you're not even the real deal." I barely have the time to duck the blade of a blood red scythe swiping over my head, slicing off a few strands of my hair. "What are you trying to show me really? That I want to kill you?" I pare his next slash with one of my own, my sword clashing with his scythe as my gaze locks itself in his fuming crimson one.

"Oi, Elliot!" Soul's voice rises like thunder is the melee, roaring with incredulity at my sudden suicidal actions, "What the hell are you doing?!"

"That I'm very real and alive and that I'm going to sink that idea into that pesky head of yours." I sneer at Oz, ignoring the currently annoying albino and frustrated to no end at the scythe wielder's lack of understanding.

"Heh" his grin widens to scary proportions, if not too wide, eyes nearly bulging out of their orbits. "With what weapon?" I don't feel in the least guilty when I slam the pummel of my sword right in his ribcage while I punch his face, before sinking the blade into his chest. He falls to his knees from the assault, the chains moving toward me faltering in their speed.

"I don't feel the pain." He giggles maliciously before pulling the blade out like it was nothing, black liquid oozing out of the open gash quickly closing up, soaking his white gloves with slick dark fluid. I didn't expect him to feel any pain whatsoever, with said blood protecting him and this attack just proved it to me. "Hihi… you can't even kill me…" I roll my sleeve up, the long cut from earlier still there but I don't have the time to do what I want to do before he's already attacking me again, more viciously this time.

He tries to slash at me from my left side and my sword find its way at one curve of the scythe, my knee hitting his chest where a wound was torn open only a few seconds ago. He slams the handle on my head with so much force I see stars for an instant before I lunge sideways to evade the straight line the blade of Oz's weapon creates when he tries cutting me in half. The blade on the ground, I don't notice until I'm falling that he swept it under my feet, making me lose my balance and land on the ground roughly. He twirls the scythe high in his hands and is on the motion of bringing it down on me when I send my sword to collide against it, only nearly managing to keep it a few inches off my face and slicing once more his chest, black blood spraying my face as I struggle to keep the scythe off me.

Seeing an opportunity, I use Oz's trick against him when I kick his feet away from under him and making him topple over himself before biting the dust on the arid ground of the desert around us. I jump off him at the same time chains hit their marks, being the location where I was the previous second.

"I know you can't die." I reply coldly, mentally slapping myself for what I'm about to do. I let the blood on my weapon trickle down to my skin, then to the still open and bleeding wound on my arm, already feeling something stirring up within me as it enter my inner bloodstream but not fully awakening. "I would be a dead man if it wasn't for the blood too."

Before I know it, chains are projecting me high in the air as Oz lets out a cry of rage fill the air around us. They pierce me through from everywhere but I don't feel a thing, smiling like any psychopath would out of triumph at the plan I decided right on this spot. I release my own battle cry and relish in the brutal sensation of tearing away from my body every chain stabbing me, jeering at the sensation of freedom I abruptly feel come into me, laughing while doing so.

They come from everywhere like arrows, the chains cutting through me but never making me suffer. They take the shape of the formation of a barrier behind Oz, who is glaring at me with as much hatred as possible. Honestly, I didn't even know he could hate right until now. I've never seen, and I suspect nobody else besides me, has ever seen the Vessalius in such distress. The black blood is taking advantage of this and exploits it to its own ends, being rendering Oz completely, downright mad of whatever grief he's suffering.

I can't feel my feet touching the ground anymore as I am propelled upward, toward the sky in another attempt to kill me and amused as I am, I grin viciously at all the vain in it. This is quite fun to watch the hopelessness grow in the blond's eyes…. No! Stay sane, I need to stay as sane as possible. Though, it's getting harder and harder to hang onto my lucidity…

I slide across the hawsers like they are nothing but simple annoying flies, smiling dementedly in the moment of the action. I scream, my sword slicing the metal of the chains in perfect halves as I plunge upon Oz with my weapon brandished high above my head. I plunge it down right into his chest again, feeling the hardness of his body as if it were stone before lifting it once again and crashing it on him again, the laughter of the monster within me echoing over my entire being as I violently stab Oz with my sword. The chains wrap themselves around my arms in a wasted effort of halting my movements but I am much stronger than humanly possible now and I yank them apart as I slam my blade down once more.

"Try and kill me now Oz! Can you see now that I am real?!" I am laughing against my will and Oz is laughing and I try looking past the angry tears flooding out of his eyes and the pained expression slowly replacing his madness and everything around me is spinning round and round and around…

"You. Are. A. Fucking. _IDIOT!_" a book is whacked over my head with force, taking me by surprise and succeeding in making me slump to the ground with a whimper. Aaah, god that hurts like hell! Before I register what's going on besides the sudden return of my sanity, I feel the boot of someone's foot crushing my cheek and head and I can immediately feel a menacing aura from whoever is squashing me and trying to choke me. Should I kill the intruder? "Just what kind of asshole do you think you're trying to be, Elliot?" Actually, bad idea. Soul can be scary. I did _not_ know that.

"No need for the swearing." I grumble and I feel his foot crushing my face just a little more, though I am sure he isn't doing it accidentally.

"Don't give a damn. I'm way over my head at the moment and NO, YOU ARE NOT KILLING HIM OZ." yep, Soul is getting _really scary_ here. Well, everybody has their dark side right?

I hear a dull 'thump!' and Oz lands next to me, red eyes glazed all over and this time it's not someone's feet pressed over his face but the blade of a black scythe, right under his neck furthermore. One side of me is outraged by such embellished measures but another, more preeminent side of me is grinning deliriously at the image, howling for more and for blood to spill. It demands his death and I know it won't go away easily, me myself having summoned that bloodthirsty side of me on purpose only a few minutes ago.

"Can't anyone for once get a hold of themselves?" he sighs, the question more addressed to himself than anybody here. Before I can reply though, he brutally slams the smooth edge of the scythe blade replacing his arm at the base of both mine and Oz's neck, the world around me turning black soon after.

* * *

><p>"Oz."<p>

"…"

_"Oz."_

"…"

"Come on. OZ VESSALIUS."

"…"

"Will you stop ignoring me?!"

"…"

"You should take that as a no."

"Shut your mouth Soul!" I holler at him angrily before turning my attention back to the smaller blond next to me sulking in his emo corner. Or plain ignoring the entire world for obvious reasons. Either way I am not letting him have his ways. It's been almost about a full hour since Soul loosened the lasso ropes that were tightly tied around Oz and me – keeping us from killing anything until the blood thirst in us had died down to a reasonable level – and ever since, I've been trying to croon the smaller boy out of his gloominess. And I still think he needs payback for piercing me with his chains. "Oz, will you stop playing a crybaby already?!" I shout at him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him as hard as I can, trying to pry a reaction out of him.

He veers in a second around to look at me with angry eyes, slapping my hand away like he once did before, when we were chased by the Baskervilles, with an brashness of defiance and slight fear. "Leave me the hell alone!" he bellows at me in the loudest scream he can manage before turning his back to me once more. That pisses me off majorly.

"Hell to the no!" I yell back at him, snatching him right there and spinning him until he's face to face with me and I am glaring into his washed out red eyes. "You can mope after I give you a piece of my opinion!" surprisingly, he replies back instead of letting me continue on my words.

"Well I don't give a damn about your opinion! I still have black blood and I am still mad at you, or whatever you are!" he stands up abruptly and out from my grasp and storms off from what little is left from the building with bits of foundation standing here and there. He never met my gaze when he spoke and the pain was clear in his tone when he talked.

"I'll go…" I interrupt Soul in the middle of his sentence.

"No," I say irritably, annoyed at Oz suddenly running away again from his problems, "knocking us out is already enough for you and anyways, he needs to fix what he started. So I'm gonna out there and talk feelings n' shit with him." As Soul is about to protest, I lift my hand up in a sign to stop and walk away from him, right in the direction my friend went.

Only when I arrive, I notice two things at once.

Firstly, the guy that got me stranded is here. Secondly, space is distorting. I mean it, there is like, a whole area near us that is twisting like it was water, rippling like when we throw a pebble across it.

Oz has already taken a battle stance, the red scythe from earlier already in his hands and a creepy nasty grin spreading on his face. I can already feel my own gory desires surging within my soul and my hand is gripping the pummel of my sword. That's the only thing I have left of my family and whatever honor is left to me. It is my weapon of redemption and I always took care of it.

"I believe you haven't introduced yourself in our last meeting." The mocking tone in Oz's voice has nothing of playful in it. It is more lethal, dangerous and menaces to kill if the request isn't obeyed to.

"The name's Gopher though I doubt you'll be able to remember it afterwards." He merely chuckles at Oz's threatening glare and simply, "I also doubt this little paradox remembers that meeting too, since he wasn't there to start with and I trapped him here." there it is, his finger pointing straight at me with an eerie grin plastered on his lips, a grin of disgusted pride. Only…

"Paradox?" I utter out without thinking, taken aback at the name he's given me. Oz is looking between us with equal perplexity, both of us unable to wrap our minds around the label I was tagged with.

"Yes, want a synonym? Contradiction, absurdity, irony, oxymoron, impossibility, enigma, blah, blah, blah, etcetera. Very sorry you're not the star of the show, Elliot Nightray but you were starting to hinder the real actors of the play just by breathing so Noah ordered me to ~"

"Trap him in a book called The Nightmare Queen, is that it?" Oz interjects Gopher in the middle of his sentence, his expression slowly losing its harshness as he appears to realize something clearly important.

"Oh?" he chimes as a flash of surprise comes across his face for only a split second before regaining his composure. "So that's how you fell for that trap too?" horror reveals itself all over Oz as dawns the realization that he's been I-don't-know-how misguided by that sinful thing raising a sneering black brow at us. "I actually came for that. Master Noah simply wanted to know if you and the Child of Misfortune have been restrained. Apparently, yes. Now I still have more work to do…" moving as one essence driven by the primal need to reach for him, we both lunge in perfect synchronization right in Gopher's direction, my sword out and head boiling with seething red hot anger while Oz's expression is the personification of pure coldness, only his eyes expressing the rage leaking in him and his scythe held high above him.

"Oh please, keep your whining to yourselves if you don't want to get hurt." He snorts before simply snapping his fingers like a magician would. "And do please stop breaking this dimension, Bloodstained Rabbit. Or your friend can get worse than what I am doing to him." What?

We are blown a good few feet away by a hellfire of feathers raining down on us, sharp as my sword as it cuts all over our body, black liquid instead red seeping out and immediately hardening. I can feel the creature in me writhe in pleasure and demand for more and I am suddenly lurching forward against my will, not by said creature but by another force, forcing me to cough out small but growing rivulets of black blood on the arid ground, the pain in my abdomen so excruciating I don't even notice I am moaning to myself until Oz is crying out my name and by my side in a second, scythe held protectively in front of me. Through my watering eyes, I can see in a blur Gopher smirk down at my kneeling figure before literally vanishing in thin air, another blur of white replacing him as the world around is changing, sending my heart on a frantic leap at what's about to happen.

"Elliot, Elliot!" calls out Oz frantically at me, his hands gripping my sagging shoulders and shaking me with vehemence, his red eyes piercing me with their intense gaze and the desperation in them. "Stay awake! Don't pass out on me now, okay? Don't close your eyes, promise me that!" I surprise myself by nodding numbly before slumping sluggishly against his chest, the landscape spinning wildly in my head and around my eyes and _Abyss,_ it hurts too damn much and everything's so damn dizzy, I'm gonna puke and I hate this, hate this pain in all its integrity…

"I'm now gonna sleep Oz, m'kay?" I murmur, my eyes drooping.

In the end, everything hurts too much for me to even think properly, the pain being compared to having my insides liquefied and being vomited through my mouth and I faint, darkness overtaking me again.

* * *

><p><strong>I seriously need to remember where I put those line breaks in my story. I keep forgetting to put them when I post a new chapter. That aside, may I inform you that I am taking waaaayyyyyyyyy too much pleasure in this story and that next chapter is gonna include some cracky moments. Yes, that again but what can I say? This IS the Book of Eibon, if you know what I mean. XDD Thanks a lot for reading, I hope having done well in this chapter! <strong>

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell!**


	16. The whole She-Bang

**Helloooo my dear darlins! Forgive my utter lateness, i have been busy lately with increasing practice exams and extreme studying and I'm not even at the real deal yet! That aside, READ ON PEOPLE, A STORY AWAITS YOUR ATTENTION.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater or Pandora Hearts. **

**Well, what are you waiting for? Geronimo!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 16: The whole She-Bang<p>

Elliot's PoV

For a while, I am simply floating in pure, soothing darkness that extends itself to no end. I am not even conscious of said blackness, not until a million of colors are suddenly bursting through it, streaming past me like a river, tunnel-like one. I am pulled by the powerful current of the multi-colored stream, which is going in every direction unfortunately, meaning me being tossed around at every angle like some weak puppet until I feel like I'm about to puke out of dizziness. The colors whirl around, too fast to be precise to my eyes and yet… and yet, I still feel as though I am staring at millions of pictures and images meddling together as one, so fast, too fast, flashing at my eyes, at my mind, until I can't take all of it anymore, until it gets too overwhelming, until I feel like entirely unknown dimensions are thrown at my face, until I feel like I am losing myself in it, losing my mind in it and it's too much, too much, too much…

With a violent jolt, I am suddenly awake, my whole body sitting up straight, my breath harsh and panting hard and my back bending over until the moment my head lands on something warm and fleecy, like oh so soft pillows being pressed against it. At the sensation of them, I let my eyes flutter shut once again for a few seconds, reveling in the feathery feeling I get from them, leaning in a bit more those pillows and longing to also feel a bed under my back and a warm blanket covering me from head to toe. I sigh softly and snuggle a bit more closely, letting my arms loosely tie themselves around whatever is under those pillows, the bedpost I can imagine.

"E-Elliot?! Wha… What a-are you…?"

Eh? Who's calling me?

"Oh my _God!_ I need to take a picture of this!"

"And since when do you keep a camera with you, damn it!" strangely, the voice that cried those sentences is really close to me and seems relatively familiar to me, only more… more what exactly? I just can't point my finger though I have it at the tip of my tongue! "H-hey, stop! Don't do that!" said voice shrieks in vague horror and a small 'click!' detonates somewhere behind me.

"And done!" that voice too seems familiar but to be honest, I have no intention in opening my eyes, feeling way too comfy to do so. "Awww, you two look so cute and fluffy and so kawaii and ggoooooddamniiit, I'm fangirling!" But still, who the hell is that annoying voice behind me that is all simply _ruining my sleepy time?!_

"Will you shut up?" I groan as miserably as possible, leaning in a bit further with a furious pout slowly taking over my features. "Trying to sleep here if you didn't notice!" I add in a hissing huff.

"Try getting off Oz first." The voice behind me snorts before bursting into a fit of very annoying maniacal giggles and I feel something shift under me, as though trying to pull as far as possibly away from me. I don't want that and I don't like that so I simply move myself of sorts that I'm practically cuddling against the moving thing.

"Elliot please, oh Abyss, _please_ open your eyes." The voice in front of me pleads and I sigh, in annoyance this time and finish by cracking one eye open to gaze lazily at emerald green irises. Oz? Why are you… blushing? I blink a few times, trying to get my bearings and letting my eyes adjust to the sudden flood of light rushing into them. I notice Oz is _way_ too close also for my comfort, his face merely inches away from me.

Then it clicks.

I suddenly pull away from him as far as I can, as though being burnt which I probably have or probably am doing at the present time, Oz being no better with his cheeks as red as they are. Actually, make that _'her cheeks'_ seeing as he… _she_… is a freaking girl! And I was… and I was napping on her… breasts.

"Oh no, oh nonononononononono! _No!_" I shriek as loud as I can, feeling my face burn a few hundred degrees and finding myself unable to tear my gaze off from those petite breasts where I was snoozing on a few seconds ago and took them for pillows a few seconds ago. Why am I not already on fire? Nevermind that! Why am I not all simply freaking _dead, _oh holy mother of all sins, I just I can't… _oh god. _Can't even think straight. "I didn't just… I couldn't! I just… _WHY ARE YOU All OF THE SUDDEN A GIRL?!_" Finally, something coherent and not just pure gibberish from someone who just slept on his-her savior's _boobs. _

_"It happened just like that damnit!"_ Oz screams right back, her arms covering her chest, oh thank god, and I finally take point that the difference I heard earlier from the blond was her voice. More high-pitched and feminine. As well as…

"STOP LAUGHING AND SHUT THE HELL UP, SOUL!" both Oz and I roar in one, terrifyingly high voice that booms everywhere around us. I don't even dare to look behind me to see if what I think is true, it's enough with having Oz more…. crap, more _prettier _than usual, I already have goosebumps just with her. I don't want to know what could happen to me if I look behind and see Soul's new gender, whom is currently choking in her own laughter, judging by Oz's stunned face and the coughing sounds behind me. I take more sadistic pleasure in hearing that than I should.

"A-ah-ahaha!" a wheeze and a coughs, "You should just really" another cough, "see your faces right now" one more cough, "Death, you're all too hilarious" she wheezes breathlessly, "right now! AHAHAHA!"

Oz makes a sound akin to a squawk mixed in with a strangled noise and I am two seconds from throwing that damn albino through the nearest window, if there's one anyways and I keep thinking of how just a smart-ass like her would be screaming in the Pits of Hell, her skin burning up into crispy beef and oh crap, the black blood, don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it…!

Speaking of faces, and with very, very, _very_ much regrets and reluctance, I let my eyes roam over to where Oz is, trying as best as I can to not let my eyes even as so graze the position where I lied my head down a few moments, feeling as though the world is so forbidding for not letting some convenient hole open up and swallow me whole.

Oz's hair is a bit longer than usual, coming to rest on her shoulders in a very messy, tomboyish way and seemingly putting more accent on her large green eyes widen even more by horror and sheer humiliation. Her face hasn't changed much, apart to seem a few tones lighter but that could just be from the fact the all blood is rushing out her system because… _never mind._ That aside, her nose seems smaller, as her plump lips are too and her features seem more stouter and softer, giving her an innocent allure. But that's where it stops. Her clothing is on to a whole new level and has now changed into a full on bad boy attire. Or in this case, bad girl. Damn, that came out wrong in _so many ways._

She seems to be wearing what looks like a small black jacket going to the length of the beginning of her waist and made of… leather? It is not uncommon to farmers to wear such things instead of cotton but it seems weird on an aristocrat like Oz to wear that. Next, under the jacket that I found too small to be of any good, comes in the equally black… top, fitting those new curves of Oz's perfectly. Ahem, professionally talking. The problem, the black whatever-is-this-thing is a bit _too fitting_ for Oz. Or any woman, actually. Looking at the jacket, I notice the collar is open upward and revealing some bits of Oz's shoulder, bare and with only almost non-existent sleeves covering little of it, mere straps actually. And I also think the neckline of shirt it shows a bit too much… cleavage.

My cheeks burn an even brighter red than it already is.

"It's called a tank top, you pervert." Soul pats my head teasingly and I suddenly wander why I am not already melted into a puddle of Elliot Nightray on the floor. No, seriously, _why?_ Being eaten by some giant chicken or the Ripper or something suddenly seems very much more appealing considering the situation I'm in. And what's up with the _giant chicken_ damnit! "It's very popular in the 21st century, mostly in the summer and perfectly fits a woman's… curves. And other stuff too, if you're still interested." My fist collides with her jaw from behind and sends her flying as I let out a cry of sorrow rip through my throat.

How could people wear such horrible things out in the open like that? How?! The simple aspect of it is terrifying.

"These clothes are horrible!" I shriek in sheer terror, feeling another wave of goosebumps run all over my body and my hands suddenly gripping my shoulders tightly. "And what are those… those _things_ that shrimp is wearing at her bottom?!" I hurl a Soul with my eyes closed, not even daring to look at her new appearance and the other prospects suddenly running through my mind at an alarming speed.

"I'm not a shrimp!" huffs Oz with as much disdain as permitted in horribly embarrassing situations like these and _holy crap, _her voice sounds so shrill and… and so _sweet!_

_Damnit!_

"Jeans." Thank god Soul is distracting me from those thoughts; otherwise I would have probably combusted. "Those are black skinny jeans that, just like you said, perfectly fit her bottom." Scratch up what I just said. She is no better than what I was thinking about and what I'm _now_ thinking about and _fuck her!_ I can perfectly image the curl of a large smirk crawling on her lips as she tells us those words. My eyes snap open.

"I DID NOT SAID THAT!" and that is once again, my fist goes straight up to smash against Soul's face, and with hope, as much force and power as possible. Her cry of pain is sadly though, still not satisfactory to me enough. And that means, unfortunately, that I turn to at her direction to give her a good piece of my mind but whatever I was going to say next gets caught in my mouth and lodges down in my throat in one big lump.

"S-S-Soul. Yo-you are… you are…" by now I am sure I could have a heart attack by the way my heart is beating so fast and so loudly in my chest and how my breath is caught in my lungs and unwilling to go out and how my feet are rooted to the floor like some tree and how my jaw is more than probably dropped all the way down to the floor. "How co-could y-you…?" I whisper in a cracked voice, suddenly feeling betrayed. Something akin to tears is suddenly welling up in my eyes and I sniff the snot from dripping off my nose.

Wait, hold on a minute. Why in hell am I suddenly feeling like crying?! I don't cry, Elliot Nightray is so not supposed to cry like a baby! Why am I such a stuttering mess and suddenly unable to look at women at all?! W-why…?

"Uuuhhh, Soul? What's going on with her?" Oz asks suddenly with a slightly frightened voice, her tone easily implying that is more than a little wary of my sudden reaction of flopping down on my knees and bursting into a fit of tears, bawling my head out.

Her. Oz said _'her'._

"Why must the world be soooo _crueeell!_" I wail out as loudly as I can, feeling like a river of salt, water and mucus are running down my face.

"Aaahh, that time of the month, eh Elliot?" I hear the albino girl say with a sigh and a chuckle, swinging an arm around my shoulders and dragging me down of sorts that my head is lolling at the crook of her neck. "Come on, girl, you're stronger than that!" she praises me, making me cry out even more loudly.

"An angry mess when a boy and a sobbing mess when a girl." Oz groans, slapping a hand on her forehead and pinching the bridge of her nose, as though anticipating the arrival of a headache. "Elliot Nightray, you're one heck of a surprise sometimes." oddly enough, her voice held a few hints of bitterness when she muttered those words at my intention and the confusion as to why makes me want to hurl.

* * *

><p>Oz's PoV<p>

It's one thing to wake up as a girl.

It's another thing that some hot-headed now girl decides to take your breasts as pillows and sleep on them.

And it's a totally different thing for said hot-headed to suddenly start bawling her eyes out for no particular reason.

Can you see it? There is a big something differencing all three.

Which? Easy. You're a _girl_, that's the difference.

Rubbing my forehead in mild annoyance, I watch from the corner of my eyes Soul try as best as she can to comfort the silver-headed girl as she sobs like a child on her shoulder and I wonder how it is to be at the scythe's place, having your sleeve being stained with tears and snot. Ew.

That aside, Elliot isn't the only one confused here; both Soul and I are just as puzzled as to what just happened. To sum things up, Elliot had simply collapsed on my lap after throwing up his very own blood on the dusty ground, just as the whole world seemed to suddenly elevate itself, what I thought to be a white blanket lifting and ascending higher up in the sky and suddenly plummeting down over me and Soul. I was so panicked, so confused, so angry, so afraid, so desperate to keep Elliot safe and sound that I didn't even have time to register the big looming shadow hovering over us and covering the clouds before my stomach was suddenly lurching upward toward my mouth as I was falling without moving an inch from where I knelt into the next world.

Or shall I say, the next chapter, considering where we were all stuck in, at the moment.

Then, after long minutes of pure silence with no sound except mine, Elliot's and Soul's breathing breaking it, I finally dared to crack an eye open, with hopes of finding myself out of this odd book and find Alice staring at me with relived eyes. Said hopes were shattered when I saw where I stood, red velvet hanging over everything and anything in crimson curtains, twisting and twirling down upon us from the sky, literally. It smelled quite in the literal term of luxury and fantasy, of all our most lustful dreams coming true and I swore in my short time here I hear a deep baritone chuckle from here and there. And we were girls, _in ALL the senses of the term._

Yes, even down _there._

My eyes had widen and my mouth had been left hanging open upon seeing Soul, with her innocent-looking red eyes fluttering open, more wider and seemingly brighter with her whiter hair tumbling down over face in straight strands and putting accent to her red orbs. Her washed-out locks fell lower behind her, just under her collarbone and twisted in two small braids crossing each other's path at the back of her head. When she stood before me, eyes gazing at me with equal confusion, I took point of just how tall she suddenly seemed to me, her slender figure accentuated by the long grey skirt pooling barely below her knees and the white vest fitting in her slim waist, a pink bow fastened below her collarbone where a pallid blue sailor's collar stood and went around her neck. She was truly a sight to see and nothing like the laid-back albino I met barely a few months ago, with her haughty attitude and very princess-like behavior, complaining about pretty much everything in a shrill tone until Elliot woke up and decided to hit on me, sleepwalker style. From then on, she seemed to take pleasure in teasing me, bits and bribes of the old Soul coming out from under that façade in the form of a devious smirk.

As for Elliot right now, well… he's the most surprising. A deep navy button-up blouse covered her and her arms with short, shoulder length puffed-up sleeves, most of it all hidden under the cover of a midnight black short-sleeved button-up coat, an equally blue skirt ruffling around her upper legs concealed by black stockings. Her black laced boots squeaked when she fell to her knees and started crying and she wrapped her dark gloved hands around Soul, as though the albino was the only thing keeping her alive, meaning nearly squeezing the life out of poor albino and shaking her as hard as she could, her cobalt eyes expanding even more broadly. I keep wondering how said pretty eyes would look out of their sockets and what would be inside those empty orbits if all the optic nerves and eye were taken – _ripped _away but then I also remind myself that it is not me being compelled to do such horrors, that only the black blood would have such power to heed attention from me and beckon me to do its gruesome bidding, to do the killings.

Very long sandy blond hair puddles around Elliot's curvy waist, falling in very messy strands and voluminous enough for her hair to be only partially tied into a loose and untidy ponytail running wild high on top of her head, the rest of her blond curls tumbling away from the elastic. Her face is as austere as ever, high in cheekbones and thin nose that would give her a hostile expression to anybody brash enough to look at her, if her features weren't contorted in sheer sadness at the present moment. Actually, it's her too sensitive and emotional character that pretty much does it for me anyways.

"Why don't you ever notice when you hurt someone Elliot?" I snap in an almost inaudible hiss that seemed to echo in this strange place like a blood-curling scream, albeit bringing the previously hot-headed boy/girl's sobbing to an abrupt end, her unfocused gaze leaving the ground to land on me, a tinge of pink coloring her cheeks for which I cannot blame her for. I don't flinch away from the suddenly hard gaze slowly creeping in her eyes behind the veil of tears covering them, instead facing her head-on and trying but nearly failing to repress the still prominent part howling to tear the girl apart and taste her blood, taint the world with it. My fingers twitch at the thought and I have to restrain my tongue from swiping across my mouth in a predatory lick.

"Isn't it _you_ who keep harming others without their notice?" she replies simply, her eyes narrowing in a dangerous way toward me, her arms releasing Soul who quickly squats away from her and gives me a warning look, to what I ignore completely. I am already long gone. Later on, I would blame my actions on my more feminine posture, not wanting to admit to anybody else than myself that the real cause of my hands clasping around her delicate face, fingers and nails pressing too hard on that too frail skin and probably bruising, is my raging emotions swarming within me since the second I saw Elliot stand like some lonesome warrior in the middle of a desert road, looking at me with a casual look, feelings that have been increasing in strength as time passed by.

_"You have no idea what hell you brought on us since you died!"_ I roar aloud, my bellow more akin to one of a scared animal than to someone who is angry at another for simply breathing.

Who fears that person.

Because you would think that for once the universe would be with you but _no,_ this universe just _had_ to bring back the one person whom you thought was better off dead than face his murders and bring more pain to his entourage and now you are afraid, afraid to lose him again, afraid that worse could happen to him, that he could _do something worse_.

Who resents that person.

Why would this… this _story_ decide that Elliot needed to fake his death? _How_ did he fake his death? _Why_ did he fake his death, if that's what he did because I'm sure he did, because there is no other way he could have lived on after rejecting Humpty Dumpty, because coming back to life is just impossible and too unfair and so inhumane and unnatural and _how did he do it? Why is he living? How? How? How? Why? Why? Why, why, WHY?_

A look of surprise on her face.

A flash of hurt.

But nothing can be more hurt than us brokenhearted because of her simply _being_.

"Why are here? Why are you alive?" I shriek, my voice cracking and shaking with bottled-up grief. "I was hurt. So, so, _so_ hurt and I hid it deep down. In the darkest place of my soul." A laugh not my own, or maybe it's a bitter sob. "_Leo _was hurt. More than I was and you nearly broke his mind and, and…" more laughter. My fingers pressing harder, slipping away from that porcelain face, skimming a soft neck, clasping, squeezing, giggles escaping my own throat.

A choke. A startled cry bearing at the edge of my mind.

"Do you think it's funny faking your death or whatever you did and suddenly come back like, like _nothing happened_?" my voice is a simple undertone, breath careening across wispy hair that tickles my cheeks. A harder squeeze and a desperate moan. A kick at my chest and I lean in closer to her, my shoulders trembling with quiet and bitter laughter.

Just how broken am I truly?

An elbow swiping at my neck, my vision suddenly spinning and my face suddenly founding itself facedown against the smooth crimson floor. A knee presses itself against the small of my back and two lean arms efficiently twist my hands away from each other and keeping them in a tight grip. A shadow looms over my head and heavy breathing is the only thing I hear for a few seconds before a shout bullets itself through the deafening silence.

"Listen to me, just for once, _listen_ to what I have to say and let me yell the hell off!" the voice is imperious, even though female, its previous innocence and sadness gone. So achingly imperious and commanding and painfully familiar and I wander once more for one delirious second if this is all just a nightmare that I simply need to wake up from. So many times I asked myself this question. "I never died and never will and never faked my death! I would never steep so low to such humiliating means and you perfectly know it!"

_Are you sure, Elliot?_ I wonder in my mind, a devious smile creeping on my lips, so close to savage. _Are you sure to know me well enough to think that _I_ wouldn't consider such a thing?_

"I…" he takes a long breath and lets it all out. "I don't know what happened when you – or whoever I thought was you – and everybody else disappeared and I got stuck in that town. In all I remember of my life and beyond, there was never anything that was so life-threatening like you recounted and I don't know what you saw and I _do _intend to find out what it is you saw, or what you think occurred."

"I'm going to find out the truth in all this mess and you're going to find out the truth too and _Oz," _the too wide smile nearly turns gentle when I hear her say my name with effort, like she did once before. "I am freaking Elliot Nightray and I am never, ever going to be thick enough to let you or that blasted Leo" her tone, for the fraction of a second flexed to intonations filled with yearning, as if a whole was carving itself in her where her best friend used to be, now gone with whatever must have happened to the Nightray and why am I thinking such things? I shouldn't soften to fast… so why? "think me as dead if I am not. I wouldn't tarnish my family's honor or mine to the point of letting my…." Another breath, shaky and filled with the struggle of the words she's forcing herself to spill. "…_friends_ mourn something that shouldn't have happened to begin with since my memories tell me otherwise."

"And whatever you saw because of me, whatever happened to you two, or anybody for the matter because of me, whatever hell you say has been brought upon you since my apparent death, I'm…" another breath, this time unsteady and complete with finality.

"I'm so, so, very sorry."

Who missed him so very dearly.

A weight I wasn't even conscious of bearing heavily on my shoulders suddenly seems lighter and I take a gasp that seems to breathe life into me once more.

_Was that what I was waiting for?_ I muse without a single spoken word. _Was I waiting for a simple sorry?_

_I blamed her. Him. _I suddenly realize. _I blamed him for so much without even thinking. I was angry against him and myself. _

_Because I wasn't strong and brave enough to save my precious Alice._

_And he wasn't strong enough to support the weight of having hurt and killed and forced to kill for his sake._

_Because if Elliot hadn't died, Leo wouldn't have gone mad_. I suddenly become conscious of so many things simultaneously and the entirety of it makes me sag like a lifeless doll against the cold ground, not having the strength to rage some more or even let out a single cry. _He wouldn't have chased after me, I wouldn't have been forced to use my dormant powers of destruction, I wouldn't have hurt Leo and Jack wouldn't have had destroyed the chains and put the balance of the whole world at risk._

_And I wouldn't have found out the truth._

Oh, how much I would have been ready to accept if not to truly see what is behind the veil. So much I would have blamed against, me included, for letting me see what truly happened. I am so _selfish. _So _unbearable._

"Oz?" Huh? How long has it been since Elliot released me? How long have I been heatedly pounding with dark ideas of blood and murders and hot seething anger against myself and the whole world? A hand pounds on my skull painfully and I blink, slowly rising to my knees.

I can barely look at Elliot.

"I…" I try in murmur, surprising myself with the utter monotone resonating around us. From the corner of my eye, I suddenly see Soul mere feet away look away from us with I suspect are teary eyes and let out a shriek of what I also suspect is utter surprise mixed up with horror and… delight. Then Elliot stiffens next to me, her cheeks redden faster than anything I've ever seen and her sword is out and she is leaping in front of me, my mind sluggish to register the current happenings and when I do just by looking where the albino is looking… my breath catches in my throat.

"Oh, way to ruin the drama sequence!" Soul's shrill voice snaps in an outraged hiss, her cheeks betraying her by the splotches of red suddenly crawling on her skin.

* * *

><p><strong>Didn't you think this chapter was simply adorable? Besides Oz's murder tentative, that is. XDD Anyways, forgive me, I couldn't resist showing off Elliot and Oz again, I'm just in love with those two and I can't help adding bits of ElliOz moments. YES, I SHIP THEM, DON'T JUDGE. *blushes, blushes, blushes*just for your info, I decided there won't be any perticular ship in this story, that would wreck me and I like the action in this fiction, so...! Well, hope you appreciated this chapter just as i did!<strong>

**Well, that's it for me then, on this note, farewell!**


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